Ethiopia: Ogaden rebels claim to have killed 35 government troops
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
November 27, 2010 (ADDIS ABABA) – The rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) on Friday said that its fighters have killed at least 35 Ethiopian government soldiers in a battle this week in the country’s eastern Somali region.
The group said in a statement on its website that its fighters were engaged in a battle with the Ethiopian forces in the in the Degahbur area of Ogaden region from November 23 to 25.
“A brigade has engaged the Ethiopian Army on multiple fronts around Degahbur from November 23 to 25. They lost 35 soldiers in the operation, with many wounded,” the ONLF said.
The group said the latest attacks were in retaliation to oppression by the Ethiopian armed forces to hundreds of civilians in the region.
“This operation was to disrupt the Ethiopian government’s new strategy of final solution-style, evicting people from their habitat and confiscating their properties then taking them to killing centers in Jigjiga Ogaden Jail and beyond.”
“Such centers are usually military camps or secret detention camps where people are inhumanely tortured,” the statement added.
The latest attack is the second after the Ethiopian government said signed a peace deal last month with an ONLF faction which ended over two decades of war with Ethiopia. The peace accord was dismissed by an exiled breakaway group of the ONLF who vowed to continue an armed struggle against the Ethiopian government.
Earlier this month, the same rebel group claimed to have killed 267 government soldiers since the beginning of October. This has been dismissed by Ethiopia as “an internet gimmick”. Ethiopia says the ONLF has disintegrated; and is no more a security threat.
The ONLF seeks more autonomy for the country’s mainly ethnic-Somali Ogaden region in protest to what it says is marginalization by the Addis Ababa regime.
The Ogaden region is said to be a promising oil region. International firms including Malaysia’s Petronas are engaged in oil search despite repeated threats from the ONLF against exploration.
Ethiopian forces launched an assault against the group after a 2007 attack on a Chinese oil exploration venture which killed 65 Ethiopian soldiers and nine Chinese oil workers.
(ST)