Ethiopian rebels freed seven Chinese workers on Sunday who were seized in a deadly oilfield raid that was one of the worst attacks to date on Beijing’s growing interests in Africa.
Officials said separatist gunmen killed 65 Ethiopians and nine other Chinese in last Tuesday’s pre-dawn assault on the exploration field in the barren eastern Ogaden region.
Adurahmin Mohammed Mahdi, a London-based spokesperson for the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), said the seven were handed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
”They are all very healthy. They are uninjured and very happy,” he told Reuters by telephone.
The ICRC confirmed the news and said the men were in Degabur, a small town south of the regional capital Jijiga. They would return to Addis Ababa on Monday, accompanied by Ethiopian and Chinese representatives, it said in a statement.
The ONLF have repeatedly warned investors they would not allow oil and gas exploration in Ogaden as long as local people were ”denied their rights to self-determination”.
The Chinese staff worked for Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, part of Sinopec, China’s biggest refiner and petrochemicals producer. Neither company has commented.
Mahdi said two Ethiopian men were also freed with the Chinese after successful negotiations between the rebels’ armed wing, ICRC officials and local Ogaden elders.
”It all went very smoothly,” he said. ”There was a ceasefire which we respected and the Ethiopians respected. The handover took place close to where the incident happened.”
He said the freed workers had been reassured the ONLF, which has been fighting for independence from Ethiopia since 1984, had nothing against the Chinese people.
”We never meant to take them as hostages,” Mahdi said. ”We removed them from the scene for their own safety. We are fighting for our own rights. So we would never deprive other people of their liberty and freedom.”
The ONLF has blamed the deaths of the Chinese workers killed on Tuesday on explosions caused by munitions during a fierce battle with Ethiopian troops guarding the facility.
In a later statement, the rebels accused Ethiopian troops of carrying out retributions against ethnic Somalis in Jijiga, ”causing widespread panic among residents”. Government officials were not immediately available to comment.
Beijing had condemned Tuesday’s raid, which analysts said exposed the risks of its drive to use Africa’s under-developed energy resources to feed a rapidly growing economy.
African governments have generally welcomed the Chinese push, which comes free of the political conditions often imposed by Western nations. But there is concern in some quarters that Beijing may be gaining too much control, treating local workers badly and flooding Africa with cheap, inferior goods. — Reuters