Effects On Ethiopia and The Somali Civil War
On November 28, 2006, the ONLF threatened that it would not allow Ethiopian troops to stage into Somalia from their territories. On December 23, the ONLF claimed to have attacked an Ethiopian column near Baraajisale heading to Somalia, destroying 4 of 20 vehicles, inflicting casualties and driving the convoy back. No independent source has confirmed the attack.
On January 10, 2007, ONLF condemned Ethiopia's entry into the War in Somalia, stating that Meles Zenawi's invasion of Somalia demonstrates that his government has been an active participant in the Somali conflict with a clear agenda aimed at undermining the Somali sovereignty. However the Somalia government thanked the Ethiopian government for its assistance in Mogadishu. On January 15, ONLF rebels attacked Ethiopian soldiers in Kebri Dahar, Gerbo, and Fiq. Five Ethiopian soldiers and one ONLF rebel were reported killed.
According to the Chicago Tribune, "As of 2007, human-rights groups and media reports accuse Ethiopia – a key partner in Washington's battle against terrorism in the volatile Horn of Africa – of burning villages, pushing nomads off their lands and choking off food supplies in a harsh new campaign of collective punishment against a restive ethnic Somali population in the Ogaden, a vast wilderness of rocks and thorns bordering chaotic Somalia". In April 2007, the Ethiopian government imposed a total commercial trade embargo on the war-affected area of Somali Region (the Fiq, Degehabur, Gode, Korahe, and Werder Zones, where the Ogadeni Somali live), prohibiting all commercial truck movement in the region and across the border into Somalia, as well as the free movement of livestock by foot. A tightly restricted and monitor tour by western journalist in the embattled region on the invitation of the regional administration reported on more alleged crimes by the Ethiopian government. A report by a Newsweek reporter detailed how Ethiopian military troops stormed a village southeast of Degahabur, accused the villagers of sympathizing with the ONLF, then razing the village and torturing and murdering many of the inhabitants.
Read more about this topic: Ogaden National Liberation Front
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