Wüstenschiff

Bewaffnete haben in Äthiopien nahe der Grenze zum Südsudan mehr als 140 Zivilisten getötet. Die Angreifer seien aus dem Südsudan gekommen und hätten bei dem Überfall in Jakawa in der Region Gambella auch Frauen sowie Kinder umgebracht [...] 60 von ihnen seien nach dem Angriff am Freitag von äthiopischen Streitkräften getötet worden. Dabei handelt es sich [...] um Mitglieder des Murle-Stammes. Unklar war zunächst, welches Motiv sie hatten [...] Dieser Überfall [...] größer angelegt [...] als vorangegangene [...] Kinder [...] entführt und in den Südsudan gebracht ...

The Ethiopian government on Saturday confirmed an attack carried out by armed men from South Sudan’s Buma (Jonglei) state indicating the raiders killed 140 people from the Nuer community in Gambella. Eyewitness told Sudan Tribune that heavily armed thousands of men from the Murle tribe on Friday morning crossed into Ethiopia and simultaneously attacked about 10 different villages inhabited by the Nuer community in Ethiopia [...] They further claimed that the gunmen tried to steal over 600 heads of cattle but fell into ambush from the Cie-Nyajaani sub-section who recovered the livestock.

[...] heavily armed thousands of men, most of them reportedly in South Sudan’s military uniform, crossed into Ethiopia [...] The attacked villages are inhabited by the Gaajaak-Nuer sections who are Ethiopian citizens [...] “They attacked about 10 villages in Jekow and Nyinenyang woredas [counties],” [...] It was not the first time for the Murle armed men to carry out such attacks across the Ethiopian border. But eyewitnesses said the Friday attack was the first of its kind in decades due to the huge number of Murle forces involved and the number of the villages affected, in addition to the death toll.

The death toll from a raid carried out by attackers from South Sudan in western Ethiopia has risen to 208 people, an Ethiopian official said, adding that 108 children were kidnapped. By Sunday afternoon, the number had risen to "208 dead and 75 people wounded" from a figure of 140 a day earlier, government spokesman Getachew Reda told the Reuters news agency. Women and children were among the dead, he said, adding that the assailants had also taken 2,000 head of livestock.

Ethiopia said it prepares to launch military offensive against South Sudan’s armed Murle militia forces who this week massacred hundreds of its citizens across the border [...] He said the Ethiopian forces will follow the Murle armed men into their territories from where they came from in South Sudan and to rescue the over 100 kidnapped children. Armed militants of South Sudan’s Murle tribe on Friday crossed the border into Ethiopia and raided 13 villages belonging to the Nuer and Anyuak ethnic groups of the Gambella Regional State bordering South Sudan in western part of Ethiopia [...] Desalegn said the Ethiopian forces are on standby to take cross-border military action against the Murle armed men, whose home area is the newly created Buma state of former Jonglei state. But he said the Ethiopian forces are only waiting for permissions from Juba government to carry out the cross-border military operation inside South Sudan’s soil, which will target Murle’s areas. Desalegn further disclosed that talks are under way with President Salva Kiir’s government on ways to carry out joint military operations along with the South Sudanese army against the Murle group which terrorized communities in Ethiopia [...] The military action is expected to involve both air strikes and ground forces to dismantle the Murle hideouts and concentrations and to force them into surrendering the kidnapped children ...

Ethiopian troops have crossed into South Sudan in search of more than 100 children who were kidnapped and spirited across the border in a surprise attack that also killed 208 people [...] "The army has been conducting reconnaissance missions in South Sudan and they have a clear idea of where the children are," Getachew Reda, the information minister, told the AFP news agency. "We have sought approval of the government of South Sudan to conduct these operations." [...] "There is a lot of military action here now," Soi said. "The whole area near the border with South Sudan is a security zone now. We can't access it at all."

After a day of high tensions, calm has returned to the western region of Gambella following Saturday’s deadly clashes involving South Sudanese refugees from the Nuer ethnic group and Ethiopian ‘highlanders’ – a term referred to other Ethiopian ethnic groups from other regions – residing in Gambella town [...] Sources told Sudan Tribune that a violent demonstration inside the Gambella regional capital was staged by thousands of the Ethiopian highlanders after 10 Ethiopians were killed by South Sudanese refugees in a revenge killing in Jewi refugee camp located 18km north of Gambella town on the road to Addis Ababa. An Ethiopian driver accidentally overran two Nuer girls inside the camp, killing both of them on the spot. Some of the youth responded by attacking Ethiopians working in the camp, killing at least 10 and wounding many others, an Ethiopian news website, HornAffairs, reported on Saturday. The incident prompted the Ethiopian highlanders inside Gambella town to mobilize themselves, backed by Anyuak ethnic group members – another tribe rival to Nuer – and began to target Nuer members inside the town. No further casualties were reported on Saturday. It was not clear why the Ethiopian highlanders targetted their Ethiopian Nuer citizens when their colleagues were killed in the refugee camp by South Sudanese Nuer from a different country ...

Authorities in South Sudan said they have recovered 32 of the over 100 Ethiopian children who were kidnapped in a cross-border raid last month by a south Sudanese militia group [...] Ogato Chan, acting governor of South Sudan’s Boma state told the Associated Press on the weekend that local chiefs collected 32 children from three villages in Likuangole County where the raiders had dropped them off. Chan said the recovered children will be brought to state capital Pibor then sent to Juba to be repatriated to Ethiopia. “The chiefs are looking for the rest of the children,” he said. The Ethiopian government has not yet made any statement with regard to the reported release of the children. When asked, Gambela regional president Gatluak Tut said he has no knowledge over the reports.

Heavy armed Ethiopian troops entered South Sudan territory in search of children abducted in last month’s raid in the Horn of Africa nation, sources said. An eyewitness said he witnessed over 20 tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) patrolling areas in Pochalla town. “A lot of troops from Ethiopia slept in Pochalla and in the morning of May 3, they started their journey toward the direction of Pibor, with heavy weapons. We also saw, this morning, jet fighters, flying over from the direction of Gambella towards Pibor and returned. They come to look for their abducted children”, said the eyewitness. The Boma state coordinator in Juba said he was informed about the presence of Ethiopian troops, who were in different places, including Jebel Raat, Akobo and Pochalla.

South Sudanese army (SPLA) said media reports about alleged invasion of South Sudan by Ethiopian forces to rescue children of Ethiopian ethnic Nuer community abducted by the Murle ethnic group of South Sudan was not true. “SPLA GHQs would like to take this opportunity to correct negative propaganda circulating on social media that Ethiopia Forces had invaded South Sudan territory. This is totally untrue; the correction information is that Ethiopian National Defence Forces are currently deployed in Tierguol and Pochalla on their side of the border,” wrote SPLA’s military spokesperson, Brig. Lul Ruai Koang, in a press statement on Friday. He however admitted that Ethiopian forces have deployed in Pochalla at the Ethiopian-South Sudanese border and that a joint military operations inside South Sudan’s Murle territory may soon be carried out to rescue the over 100 abducted kids.

Up to 56 children previously abducted from the Ethiopian Nuer community by armed men from the ethnic Murle community in South Sudan have been recovered and returned to the Ethiopian authorities in Gambella region [...] The report that 56 kids were freed was announced on Friday by the South Sudanese minister of information, Michael Makuei Lueth, who cited that the report was presented to the cabinet meeting on Friday by David Yauyau, deputy minister for defense, also a Murle. Over 50 other children are yet to be recovered with fears that some who could not walk or run fast, or were too heavy to carry during the retreat of the Murle abductors might have been murdered by their abductors.

More Ethiopian children who were abducted by a South Sudanese militia group have been recovered and safely returned to their home [...] The number of children so far freed from South Sudanese abductors has reached 63 [...] Officials say at least 60 more children are still missing and their release according to sources is being difficult as unidentified demands of abductors have not yet met. It is feared that abductors could trade the children to other communities with the exchange of cattle [...] Critics accused Ethiopia’s government of doing little to immediately rescue the children. “How could a border of country which prides it self as a militarily strong could be so porous to an extent that thousands of foreign armed men invade the nation” Biniyam Daniel, a politician based in Addis Ababa told Sudan Tribune on Saturday.