Clashes leaves 40 dead

Clashes between Oromos and ethnic Somalis in Western Haraghe, eastern Ethiopia, last week left 39 Oromos and a government security agent dead, Ethiopian media reports said. Hundreds of livestock were stolen. According to reports in a regional newspaper ‘Tobya’ - also carried on radio stations monitored by the BBC - the Isa Somalis surrounded the Oromos and massacred them. The reports said “unidentified groups” took advantage of the clashes and attacked six electric transmitters, leaving the towns of Meison, Asebe Teferi, Debesa, Gelemso Irna among others without power for a number of days. No independent sources have confirmed the killings. Humanitarian sources in Ethiopia told IRIN that drought had exacerbated traditional hostilities between the Oromos and Somalis, both pastoral communities. The northernmost zone of the Somali region has suffered a prolonged dry season without rains for two months, said the source, causing movement of livestock into the more fertile Haraghe hills, Dire Dawa and Harar. Although the seasonal migration is not an unusual movement, the number of people and cattle involved this year is unusually large, and has put stress on local relationships and available pasture. Severe drought in the northern Somali zone has also recently caused the displacement of Ethiopian ethnic Somalis into southern Djibouti.