UN refugee agency evacuates staff from Gambella

The UN refugee agency has evacuated its non-essential staff from western Ethiopia after violence that left an estimated 30 people dead and dozens injured.

UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said the local hospital had been “overwhelmed” after a weekend of fighting in Gambella, 800 km west of Addis Ababa.

A daylight 7am till 7pm curfew has also been imposed in the ravaged town by the regional authorities, according to UN sources with contacts in the town.

A large military presence has restored calm but the situation is still extremely tense. Fighting erupted on Saturday when seven people were killed in a vehicle which came under machine gun fire
as they drove to a new site for a refugee camp which will house some 24,000 people.

Four men were killed instantly, while the others – who were government refugee workers - were chased into the bush before being shot, Janowski said in a statement from Geneva.

“The incident on Saturday unleashed a spiral of violence which has left an estimated 30 people dead and many more homeless after scores of homes were torched in what appeared to be reprisal attacks,” the statement said.

“On Monday, senior government officials arrived in the town close to the Ethiopia-Sudan border to negotiate peace between the warring ethnic groups,” it added.

Flights to Gambella from the Ethiopian capital have also been cancelled while shops, schools, offices and banks in the town all remain closed, UNHCR said.

According to local sources, Anuak residents in Gambella are unhappy over the proposed refugee camp which will house Neur and Dinka refugees. Anuak and Nuer have been fighting in recent years over land and political representation in the area.