Ethiopia’s isolated Ogaden: refugees tell tale of repression
BOSASO, Somalia (AFP) — Tales of rape and murder from refugees fleeing Ethiopia’s Ogaden region offer a glimpse of the violence wracking the hermetic rebel zone, off limits now even to foreign aid groups.
“It’s worse than hell, what is happening in Ethiopia,” said Fardosa, whose eyes seem to have frozen wide open since her own ordeal.
“A group of Ethiopians [Woyannes] came to my house in early August and four soldiers took me into my bedroom and assaulted me,” said the thin young woman, cradling a nine-month-old baby.
For a dollar a month, she rents a small hut in Tula Absame, a refugee camp in this northern Somali port where increasing numbers of people are flocking after fleeing Ogaden, the triangle of Ethiopia that juts into Somalia.
Even the dire living conditions and scorching heat in Tula Absame are no deterrent for hundreds of Ogaden refugees ready to brave a perilous boat journey across the Gulf of Aden to seek a better life in Yemen or elsewhere.
Ethiopia Woyanne has launched a major crackdown in the vast Ogaden region, whose residents are mainly ethnic Somalis and Muslim.
Ethiopia’s Woyanne’s main target is the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a rebel group formed two decades ago to seek independence in response to what it says has been systematic marginalisation by Addis Ababa.
“Two of my brothers who were (rebel) ONLF members were hanged from a tree,” said Fardosa.
But both the ONLF and humanitarian organisations have raised fears that widespread collective punishment and reprisals against civilians are underway in Ogaden, a region under tight army lockdown.
“What is happening… is a form of genocide, it’s a systematic destruction of crops and livestock. There is a total closure of economic development in Ogaden,” said Osman Hassan Ahmed, a 27-year-old from the eastern Ogaden town of Werder who arrived in Bosaso on September 1.
“My tea shop was closed (by the army) in February and I was accused of funding the ONLF… In early July I was arrested with two friends and managed to escape thanks to relatives in the army… but my two friends were hanged.”
The haggard-looking young man expects more suffering ahead on the gruelling crossing to Yemen on boats where smugglers have been known to starve and beat their passengers for days.
“I’m planning to travel to Yemen. The deadly voyage is just about luck, I’ve seen my two friends hanged and thought I’d be the next. I’ve escaped the angel of death quite a few times and I hope to escape again,” he said.
The Ogaden refugees in Bosaso express dismay at what they see as the world’s indifference to their plight and their region, an arid zone believed to contain large quantities of oil and natural gas though rebel activities have scuppered efforts to develop a significant mining industry.
“Darfur gets all the world attention but Ogaden is the same… It’s unfortunate and sad that the world has turned a blind eye on what is happening there,” said Abdi Ahmed Abdillah.
The 31-year-old farmer says he fled the village of Koos in July with his wife and three children. He had to leave two other children behind.
“In my lifetime, I’ve never seen such massive displacement of civilians by the Ethiopian government, it’s new,” he said.
Ethiopian Woyanne forces launched their sweep of Ogaden following an ONLF attack on a Chinese oil venture in April that left 77 people dead, including several Chinese workers.
The refugees charge that Addis Ababa is targeting civilians and their livelihood in a bid to undermine support for the ONLF.
“I was a livestock farmer, I had cows but the government took all of them, accusing me of being affiliated to ONLF,” said Abdillah, who denies any rebel affiliation.
“I felt threatened… I heard about relatives who were mutilated… One of my aunts was gang-raped and hanged from a tree by Ethiopian Woyanne forces,” he said.
He said that violence in the Ogaden for years was confined to skirmishes between the rebels and government forces. “The past year, it has became worse… Now, the source of livelihood of civilians is being targeted.”
Jama Ali Aden had a similar story.
He left his home in Werder district in early August after Ethiopian Woyanne troops raided neighbouring villages.
“I witnessed the army burning the village of Arawelo,” said Aden, who fled to Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia, with his camels, which he sold to pay for the crossing.
“Over the past six months, we’ve experienced a new tactic of indiscriminate punishment from the government to take revenge on the ONLF,” he said.
Hawa, a 43-year-old woman from Gabo-Gabo in eastern Ogaden, said anybody could fall victim to the Ethiopian Woyanne crackdown.
“All the males were rounded up and detained, we could hear their screams being tortured. I was so traumatised I decided to flee,” she said.
Hawa said that the risks of the crossing are dwarfed by those of simply staying in her home region.
“I’m much happier in my hut here. There’s no sense of security and peace in Ethiopia… You are never sure when the soldiers will come.”
Humanitarian organisations have recently complained that Ethiopian troops and authorities have prevented them from pursuing their activities in Ogaden, raising fears that a major crisis was looming in the region.
“I think we are missing a big thing that is happening under our eyes,” said Loris de Filippi, operational coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) Belgium in Ethiopia, after Addis Ababa expelled both MSF and the International Committee for the Red Cross from reaching Ogaden’s worst-hit areas.
A UN fact-finding mission visited Ogaden earlier this month to determine the impact of the violence on the civilian population, but it has not yet made its conclusions public.
Somali Islamists and opposition leaders meeting in Eritrea have joined forces in a new alliance to overthrow Somalia’s transitional government. More than 300 delegates, including Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, have approved a constitution and central committee.
Sheik Aweys emerged from hiding
to attend the talks [photo: BBC]
A spokesman said the new movement will be called The Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia.
It aims to remove the Ethiopian Woyanne-backed government by negotiation – or war.
“We have two-track options – first is the liberation of Somalia through military struggle, the second is through diplomatic efforts,” said Zakariya Mahamud Abdi, spokesman for the Somali Congress.
The Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia (ALS) will have a 191-member central committee that will function as a parliament with a 10-person executive committee to be elected shortly.
The spokesman had a stark warning for Ethiopian Woyanne troops, heavily deployed in Somalia since they rescued embattled transitional government forces last year.
“We warn Ethiopia Woyanne to withdraw immediately. It is now or never and in a few weeks they will not have a route to withdraw,” Abdi said.
Key role
Reporters at the Somali Congress for Liberation and Reconstitution in Asmara say the alliance is unlikely to be Islamist-led as the opposition is hoping to draw on the broad political support and fundraising opportunities of the Somali diaspora.
The participants want to see
the Woyanne invading forces out
within two months [photo: BBC]
But observers say it will be interesting to see if a position is offered to the Islamist leader Sheikh Aweys, an architect of the Mogadishu insurgency, who has been in hiding since the Islamic Courts’ Union was routed by the Ethiopian army last year.
In an interview with the Eritrean media, Sheikh Aweys, has dismissed US allegations that he is a “terrorist”.
“I am a Somali nationalist fighting for a free and united Somalia,” he said “and this is considered by the US administration to be terrorism.”
The UN refugee agency says some 400,000 people have fled the fighting in the capital in the past four months as a result of the surge in violence.
The Islamists, along with other opposition leaders like Hussain Aideed, boycotted a reconciliation meeting sponsored by the transitional government last month.
US warnings
Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi has said his troops will withdraw once African Union peacekeepers arrive in Mogadishu.
But pledges by AU nations to contribute troops to the planned 7,000-strong peacekeeping mission have yet to be honoured and so far only 1,600 Ugandan soldiers have been deployed.
Just days ago, a senior US official said the presence of Sheikh Aweys in Asmara was further evidence Eritrea gave sanctuary to terrorists.
The gathering of further intelligence could lead to Eritrea being named as a state sponsor of terrorism – followed by sanctions, the official warned.
A Manchester scientist will be returning to his continent of birth in a bid to help train young eye specialists in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Dr Vincent Nourrit, a visual optics expert at The University of Manchester, will be spending two weeks of his summer holiday teaching optometry students in the highlands of northwest Ethiopia.
The new degree course at the University of Gondar is designed to address the chronic shortage of optometrists in a country where more than one million people are blind or suffer low vision.
“It is estimated that up to 80% of this blindness is either treatable or preventable but there simply aren’t enough trained professionals to carry out the procedures,” said Vincent, who is based in Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences.
“This degree course – the first in the country – has been developed with a full curriculum, so the students will be able to go on and train other optometrists in the future.”
Vincent, who was born in the north western African country of Burkina Faso, will fly out to Gondar in September to teach the intensive two-week visual optics component of the course to the students.
The pioneering project, which will be expanded to another university in the south of Ethiopia next year, has been set up by UK optometrist Gemma Peters, who trained at what was formerly the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).
Gemma said: “The staff and students are delighted that Vincent will be coming to Gondar and we look forward to his valuable contribution to the teaching.
“Being the first optometrists to be trained in the East Africa, these students are highly motivated and hard working, but they face many challenges in this context. But with a positive attitude and the support of professionals like Vincent, the standard of training, resources and facilities will continue to improve.
“When I was first appointed by ORBIS International-Ethiopia to set up this training we had no textbooks or equipment or even a classroom. One year on, we now have an optometry clinic, a spectacle workshop with trained technicians and our own small reference library.
“For many years it has been one of my personal goals to work in development and this is why this project appeals so much to me and hopefully to others in the future.”
Vincent’s trip, which is being partly funded by the UK charity Gondar (Ethiopia) Eye Surgery (GEES), begins on Saturday (September 15) and will last until the end of the month.
For further information contact:
Aeron Haworth
Media Officer
Faculty of Life Sciences
The University of Manchester
Tel: 0161 275 8383
Mob: 07717 881563
Email: [email protected]
[photo by Tewodros Mekebeb]
Tonight there is a free concert going on at the Washington Monument given by several Ethiopian musicians to celebrate the new Ethiopian millennium.
[photo by Tewodros Mekebeb]
Ato Abebe Belew of Addis Dimts radio told Ethiopian Review that there are currently (8:15 PM EST) thousands of Ethiopians enjoying the concert, which will go on until 10 PM.
The free concert was planned for last night, but Woyanne agents and sympathizers had reserved the place in advance. Thinking that last night’s concert was given by pro-Ethiopia artists, thousands of Ethiopians went to the Washington Monument. But they were shocked to find out that the Woyanne ambassador Samuel Assefa was invited as a guest of honor. When HodAder Samuel tried to give a speech, the crowed showered him with insults: “leba!” “leba!” The Woyanne presence spoiled the mood of most of the people in the crowd. So they left in disguest. Fortunately, they have the chance to enjoy the real event tonight patriotic artists such as Abebe Belew.
Kinijit Spokesperson Dr Hailu Araya
addressing a rally in front of the
U.S. Congress [photo: Tewodros Mekebeb]
Hundreds of Ethiopians have participated in a rally today in front of the United States Congress to urge members of Congress to pass H.R. 2003.
The rally was organized by the Washington DC Millennium Celebrations Committee.
Kinijit leaders Dr Hailu Araya and Ato Gizachew Shiferraw, U.S. Congressman Mike Honda, and representatives of several Ethiopian civic and political groups were among the speakers.
The speech by a representative of the Ogaden Ethiopian community was the highlight of the rally. (We will post Ato Guled’s speech as soon as we get it).
[photo: Tewodros Mekebeb]
