UK prepares commando unit to free Ethiopia hostages
March 5, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — Britain reportedly prepared a commando unit to rescue five of its nationals kidnapped in northern Ethiopia, as Addis Ababa on Monday refused to back claims that Eritrean soldiers carried out the abduction.
The Britons, all linked to Britain’s embassy in Addis Ababa, were kidnapped last Thursday in the remote Afar desert region near the Eritrean border, according to the Ethiopian state news agency.
London has already sent a crisis team to Ethiopia in an effort to obtain the release of the five, along with their Ethiopian drivers and interpreters.
Some 60 SAS troops have already been dispatched to neighbouring Djibouti, the British Daily Mirror reported Monday, while the Times talked of a “substantial” team and the Guardian said special forces were already in Ethiopia itself.
Meanwhile, an Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman refused to be drawn on the accusation by the head of the Afar region that Eritrean soldiers had abducted the tourists.
“We cannot fingerpoint anybody,” said Solomon Abebe. “The priority for the government is that the Europeans are freed.”
But he said the government still had no news of the abucted group.
The president of Afar, Ismail Ali Sero, on Saturday accused Eritrean soldiers of kidnapping the five tourists and 13 Ethiopians who were accompanying them.
Eritrea immediately denied the allegation.
“This is crazy, no one is involved in any business of kidnapping,” Yemane Gebremeskel, the director of Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki’s office said.
The Eritrean information minister, Abdu Ali, accused arch-foe Ethiopia of trying to tarnish his country’s image.
“People have to ask the motive for this, and people should not rule out that this is not all a gimmick – for Ethiopia to use the catchwords of ‘terrorism’ and ‘kidnapping’ for their own public relations objective.”
Relations between the two neighbours have been tense since Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war.
Despite a peace deal after a 1998-2000 war, they have yet to define the status of their 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) frontier.
The British ambassador to Ethiopia, Robert Dewar, met Monday in Addis Ababa with the Ethiopian foreign minister and other officials, Ethiopian diplomatic sources said.
The British Foreign Office on Monday said everything was being done to secure the safe return of the group.
“It is (the) top priority to get the safe return and they are continuing to do everything they can to secure a successful outcome,” a spokesman said.
Ethiopian police said Sunday that the government had sent a team of police and defence officials to Hamed Ela, where the abduction took place, in the remote Afar region that straddles Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.
The kidnapped Britons — three men and two women — are members of staff, or relatives of members of staff of the Addis Ababa embassy.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said it was believed all five were British nationals, although sources close to the investigation suggested one of them could be French.
According to the Italian foreign ministry, one of those kidnapped has dual British-Italian nationality.
Afar separatists started a low-level rebellion in the early 1990s against the division of the Afar people between the region’s three countries.
Tourists visit the area mainly to see the Danakil Depression, one of the lowest and hottest places on Earth known for its salt mines and active volcanoes.
(AFP)