Ethio-Somali

The United Nations says the humanitarian situation is deteriorating in the volatile Ogaden region of Ethiopia. The world body has also called for an independent investigation into reports of human rights violations there.  From U.N. headquarters in New York, VOA’s Margaret Besheer has more.

The United Nations warns that humanitarian conditions have substantially deteriorated in conflict areas of the predominantly ethnic Somali region of Ethiopia, where the military and rebels have been clashing.

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas told reporters Thursday that a recent mission to the area found that the price of food had nearly doubled due to government restrictions on commercial and livestock trade. She added that household food reserves are nearly exhausted, and food aid operations have been seriously delayed.

“The mission fears that the situation could rapidly worsen within two or three months unless more food gets to the population,” she said.

The United Nations says emergency food aid is needed for some 600,000 people in the Ogaden for the next three months.

The mission also noted that many people in these areas expressed fear at being caught in the middle of the on-going conflict between the Ethiopian military and Ogaden rebels.

The rebels and several human rights groups accuse the military of human rights abuses, a charge the Ethiopian government has denied.

U.N. spokesman Yves Sorokobi says the mission has looked into these accusations and has prepared an internal report that has not been published. He would not comment on its contents, only to say:

“Clearly in a conflict between rebels and the government, the chances are some rights abuses are being committed,” he said.  “The report was based on a fact-finding mission that itself was prompted by a number of accusations made by human rights groups.”

The Ethiopian army launched a crackdown on the region following an attack by rebels from the Ogaden National Liberation Front in April against a Chinese-owned oil field that killed more than 70 workers.

Meles Zanawi earlier this year briefly detained what it said were four U.S. soldiers trying to contact a rebel group that has been fighting for greater autonomy for eastern Ethiopia, government officials said Friday.

Bereket Simon, a senior adviser to  Meles Zenawi, declined to say when the soldiers were detained or give any further details.

Asked about the U.S. soldiers, he told The Associated Press: “Four soldiers, or some soldiers, were detained. They were trying to contact the ONLF (the Ogaden National Liberation Front). That was not permitted.”

An official at the U.S. Embassy and a State Department spokesman in Washington had no immediate comment.

In an interview published in this week’s Time magazine, Meles said Woyanne had no proof the American soldiers made contact with the rebels but they could have been “moving in that direction.”

“As far as we know, these personalities did not have official sanction to do that what they were doing. They were violating their own code of conduct,” the premier told Time in an interview conducted last month.

An official familiar with the case said that the soldiers were detained in May in the eastern region of Somali State, as the Ogaden is known. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said they were immediately released and their Ethiopian-American interpreter released in August.

At the time, the U.S. soldiers’ detention was not made public. ..

The Ogaden National Liberation Front dramatically escalated its decade-long insurgency in eastern Ethiopia when in April it attacked a Chinese-owned oil exploration field, killing 74 workers. Until then, it only made occasional hit-and-run attacks on government troops.

Since the rebels’ April attack, the army has intensified its counterinsurgency operations, which aid and human rights groups say has seen the military burn villages, block aid and trade into the region.

The government denies its forces have committed any violations.