Ethiopia on Tuesday gave the Red Cross a week to leave the Ogaden region in the country’s volatile east, saying the aid group had been talking to rebels who operate there.
The Ogaden rebels, ethnic Somalis who have been fighting the government for more than a decade, accused the government this week of blockading aid to their region near the Somali border.
The Red Cross workers ”are interfering with the political situation”, said Jama Ahmed, a vice-president of the Somali region.
”They are talking to the rebel groups. We have many kinds of evidence.
”If they review their actions and they apologise and they promise only to stick to humanitarian activities, they are welcome [to come back],” Jama said.
Calls to the Red Cross in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, were not immediately returned. The group has been carrying out water and sanitation projects in eastern Ethiopia.
Earlier this week, the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) called for a United Nations investigation into allegations the government has been blocking food aid to their region for nearly two months. The government announced a crackdown on the rebels in June, two months after the ONLF attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field, killing 74 people.
On Tuesday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said the military operations are hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid, but the government is not blockading shipments.
”WFP does not consider the government is blockading the Somali region,” WFP spokesperson Peter Smerdon said in Nairobi, Kenya. He said distributions of WFP food are under way in three of the region’s nine zones.
ONLF’s spokesperson Abdirahman Mahdi said the agency talks only about ”areas where there is no violence”.
”WFP is not talking about the realities on the ground in the Ogaden region,” Mahdi told the Associated Press from London. ”If no immediate intervention is done soon by the international community, there will be a catastrophe in the area.”
Last month, Human Rights Watch accused the Ethiopian army of blocking aid, burning homes and displacing thousands of civilians in the crackdown. The New York-based group cited witnesses.
The ONLF is fighting to overthrow the government for what it says are human rights abuses and to establish greater autonomy in the Ogaden, which covers 200 000 square kilometres. — Sapa-AP