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US aid team
starts work in Ethiopia's Ogaden |
ADDIS ABABA (AFP)
— The United States on Thursday announced it
had sent a team to assess humanitarian needs
in Ethiopia's Ogaden region, where
government troops have been battling
insurgents since June last year.
Last September, a UN mission recommended an
independent probe into allegations that the
government had committed rights abuses in
its clampdown on Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF) rebels.
"The US government Humanitarian Assistance
Team is in Ethiopia to examine health,
nutrition, food security, and water and
sanitation conditions and livelihood issues
in the Somali region in order to provide an
impartial assessment of the current
humanitarian situation and facilitate
appropriate response efforts," a US embassy
statement said.
Technical experts from USAID and the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) had arrived in Ethiopia on December
20, the statement said, adding that an
initial four-day assessment in Jijiga and
Degehabur zones started last week.
Ethiopia is seen as by Washington as a key
regional ally in its "war on terror" and
receives hundreds of millions of dollars
each year in aid.
Aid and human rights groups have claimed
widespread rights abuses and a humanitarian
disaster after the Ethiopian army launched a
crackdown in the region following an ONLF
attack on a Chinese-run oil venture killed
77 people in April.
The government has fiercely denied those
claims.
Since then, both sides have claimed to have
killed large numbers of the other side but
the reports cannot be confirmed as large
swathes of the region are out of bounds for
journalists and aid workers.
Formed in 1984, the ONLF is fighting for
independence of ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden
they say have been marginalised by Addis
Ababa. |
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