Around 200 killed in Ethiopia clashes
One-hundred-and-ninety-six people, most of them gold miners, have been killed in ethnic clashes in Ethiopia’s western Gambella state.
“More extensive killing of people reportedly occurred on 30 January in the Dimma region of Gambella, bordering on Sudan.
This time 196 people were killed, of whom 172 were traditional miners,” the ministry of federal affairs said on Wednesday in a statement that outlined recent unrest in the region.
It was not immediately clear what ethnic group or groups the victims came from. It takes a while for information to trickle into the capital Addis Ababa from remote towns due to poor communication.
Dima is some 250 km west of Gambella, where human rights groups said hundreds of people were killed in December following clashes between the Nuer ethnic group and the Anuak.
The two groups have traditionally clashed over land.
UNHCR
The UN refugee agency UNHCR and the World Food Programme (WFP) have evacuated all their international staff, according to a UNHCR source.
An estimated 4000 residents of Dima town have fled to the
nearby town of Mizan due to the violence, according to UN
sources.
Aid workers said up to 15,000 Anuaks had fled into
Sudan.