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Ethiopia assault: 200 people dead, 100 children missing
checkoutethiopia.comThe death toll from a raid performed by attackers from South Sudan in western Ethiopia has increased to 208 individuals, an Ethiopian official said, including that 108 children were kidnapped.
By Sunday afternoon, the amount had risen to "208 deceased and 75 people injure" from a figure of 140 a day before, government spokesman Getachew Reda told the Reuters news agency.
Women and children were among the deceased, he said, adding that the assailants had also taken 2,000 head of livestock.
"Ethiopian Defence Forces are taking measures. They are closing in on the attackers," Getachew said.
The attack occurred on Friday in the Horn of Africa nation's Gambela region which, alongside a neighbouring state, hosts more than 284,000 South Sudanese refugees who've fled a battle in that state.
The attackers are not believed to have links with South Sudanese government troops or rebel forces who fought the government in Juba in a civil war that ended with a peace deal signed last year.
Getachew earlier told Al Jazeera that Ethiopian forces had killed 60 of the attackers and would cross the border into South Sudan to pursue the assailants if required.
Cross border cattle raids have occurred in precisely the same place previously, frequently involving Murle tribesmen from South Sudan's Jonglei and Upper Nile regions - places awash with weapons that share borders with Ethiopia.
Preceding assaults, however, were smaller in scale.
Under pressure from neighbouring states, America, the United Nations and other powers, South Sudan's feuding sides signed an initial peace deal in August and agreed to share out ministerial places in January.
Somalia raid: Al-Shabab says 43 Ethiopian troops killed
Somali rebel group al-Shabab says it's killed 43 soldiers in an attack on a base of Ethiopian troops serving with the African Union's AMISOM force Somalia.
"Our fighters stormed the Halgan base of AMISOM ... We killed 43 AU soldiers from Ethiopia in the fighting," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabab's military operations spokesperson, told Reuters news agency.
Town of Halgan, where Thursday's attack happened, lies in the Hiraan region of central Somalia, about 300km north of the capital Mogadishu.
He said "several" al Shabab fighters had died in the raid but he didn't give a figure.
"It was a huge blast. It ruined the gate and parts of the foundation," he said.
Residents said they heard an enormous explosion at the base and a heavy exchange of gunfire shortly before dawn.
"Al-Shabab says they drove a car equipped with a suicide bomb into the base followed by armed men storming the base and killing the soldiers, said Mohamed Adow, reporting from Kenya's capital Nairobi.
An AMISOM spokesman said that there was "an attempted attack" at the base in Halgan.
He said AMISOM forces were still in charge of the base, according to Adow.
Al-Shabab frequently launches gun and bomb attacks on officials, Somali security forces and AMISOM within an effort to topple the government and impose its own brand of government on Somalia.
In January, Kenyan troops serving with AMISOM endured substantial losses when al-Shabab made a morning raid on their camp in El Adde, near the Kenyan border.
Al-Shabab said it killed over 100 soldiers but Kenya gave no precise casualty amount.
Ethiopia strives investment as cure for Ogaden battle
The Ethiopian government says he was killed by fighters in the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a group it considers a terrorist organisation.
Bushra - along with numerous other children who lost their parents in a decades-long conflict between the authorities and the rebel group - live and go to school at a government-run orphanage.
"I desire to be a doctor after I grow up," Bushra told Al Jazeera. "I want to treat the aged people and the exposed. I'd like to look after them for my nation."
The ONLF continues to be fighting for an unaffiliated homeland for ethnic Somalis in the area referred to as Ogaden, in eastern Ethiopia. Jijiga is the region's capital.
There is still no formal agreement between the two parties to end the disagreement, but the government says the fighting is over, and it's eager to reveal that it is investing in infrastructure.
Meanwhile, government officials deny that tight security limits the political and civil rights of ethnic Somalis.
During Al Jazeera's reporting in Ogaden, which is difficult for journalists to access, this correspondent was generally accompanied by government representatives.
"The Somali regional state and the federal government of Ethiopia is the real liberator of individuals from poverty," Abdifateh Ahmed, advisor to the president of the Ethiopian Somali Regional State, told Al Jazeera.
"We're fighting ailments, we're fighting illiteracy, we are fighting joblessness. That is where the real war is. That's where they have to give."
Ethiopia has an ethnically based federal state system that, in principle, gives each state the right to govern itself and even secede.
Though the government insists it is constructing bridges and making investments, in a recent interview an ONLF leader residing abroad told Al Jazeera the authorities was still ignoring the rights of ethnic Somalis.
"The ONLF is seeking what is already in the constitution, which is: every nation is entitled to self determination," said Abdirahman Mahdi, the ONLF's self-declared foreign minister.
Al-Shabab and Ethiopian forces make conflicting claims.
Somali armed group al Shabab and African Union's AMISOM force have each claimed to have killed large numbers of one other side's combatants in a gun battle in central Somalia.
Town of Halgan, where Thursday's battle happened, lies in the Hiraan region of central Somalia, about 300km north of the capital Mogadishu.
The AMISOM force fighting in Somalia said its troops repelled an assault on one of its bases by al-Shabab and killed 110 combatants.
"AMISOM forces killed 110 al-Shabab and seized a sizeable cache of weapons," AMISOM spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Joe Kibet told Reuters news agency by telephone, adding that a claim by al-Shabaab that it had killed AU soldiers was a "falsehood".
Conversely, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabab's military operations spokesperson, told Reuters: "Our fighters stormed the Halgan base of AMISOM ... We killed 43 AU soldiers from Ethiopia in the fighting."
He said "several" al Shabab fighters had died in the raid but he did not give a figure.
Residents said they heard a huge explosion at the base and a heavy exchange of gunfire shortly before morning.
"Al Shabab says its combatants drove a car equipped with a suicide bomb into the base, followed by armed men storming the base and killing the soldiers, said Al Jazeera's Mohamed Adow, reporting from Kenya's capital Nairobi.
Al Shabab often launches gun and bomb attacks on officials, Somali security forces and AMISOM in an attempt to topple the authorities and impose its own brand of government on Ethiopia Somalia.
In January, Kenyan troops serving with AMISOM endured significant losses when al Shabab made a dawn raid on their camp in El Adde, near the Kenyan border.
Nearly all the ethnic Somalis work in agriculture. Twenty years ago they'd practically no access to medical services or education.
The government says it has assembled more than 200 health centres in the past couple of years. A fresh hospital is due to open in a number of months.
A university opened in 2007 where 21,000 pupils now study. There are more than 150 high schools across the region. Twenty years ago there were just two.
Al-Shabab said it killed more than 100 soldiers but Kenya gave no exact casualty amount.
Ethiopia: Ex-ONLF rebels in Ogaden learn new skills
Former rebel combatants with the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), which has fought for decades against the authorities for an independent state for ethnic Somalis in Eastern Ethiopia, are learning new skills to make fresh starts.
Gored Osman Ali is one combatant who put down his arms and surrendered to the Ethiopian military two years past.
He could be learning carpentry in what the Ethiopian government describes as a programme to teach the ex-combatants new abilities and incorporate them into society.
Ali, who's greatly scarred from enduring nine wounds during his time with the group, says he joined the ONLF when he was 15.
"I realised there was no means a remedy could be found using force and whatever understanding I 'd in the beginning I was wrong, he told Al Jazeera.
Ogaden is officially known as the Somali region of Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian government has said that hundreds of ONLF fighters have been captured or surrendered in recent years,and insists the conflict is finished.
The Ethiopian government and the ONLF have accused each other of committing human rights abuse including killing of civilians, torture and rape. There continues to be no formal political resolution.
But Abdirahman Mahdi, a senior ONLF leader, told Al Jazeera within an interview that the armed group was expanding and that it had joined other Ethiopian groups.
Some fighters, including ex-ONLF commander Mohammed Sharif Abdulhai, disagree.
"Yes I heard the interview and I was very surprised," the former commander, who surrendered with around 20 other men four months ago, said when interviewed in the presence of government officials.
"Where are the fighters he's referring to? There's no one left."
Many of the former combatants went on to become soldiers within the regional state's Special Forces, whose function was to combat the ONLF and protect the edges from al-Shabab across the border in neighbouring Somalia.
"[The ONLF is] an organisation whose ideology is based on the strong belief that they'll achieve something through savage force through bullying of rural communities and killing," Abdifatah Ahmed, adviser to the president of the Ethiopian Somali Regional State, said.
Floods and landslides kill over 100 in Ethiopia
checkoutethiopia.comAbout 100 people happen to be killed by floods and landslides across Ethiopia that started last month, government officials say.
At least 20,000 families have been made homeless, according to the UN, while local officials say there are a number of folks still missing.
Meteorologists have attributed this year's particularly powerful El Nino weather phenomenon for the nation's high rainfall.
Assistance organisations expect continued floods could displace tens of thousands more.
ethiopiacurrentnewsstories.com"People can be affected in different manners. They are able to have damaged crops, they can lose their livestock, and in the more extreme instances, lose their entire families and go truly fairly destitute," Paul Handley, of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Ethiopia, said.
The floods also have hampered distribution of essential aid to drought-affected places.
The situation is exacerbated because more than 10 million people are driven to rely on aid after the nation suffered its worst drought in decades that continued at least a year.
Handley said the six affected regions had already been in a perilous situation relating to food security.
"This is where the 10.2 million people that we've been helping already are," he said.
ethiopiacurrentnewsstories.com"But now they are also struggling with the floods. It's really adding to the already-desperate situation."
