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Showing posts from March 13, 2009

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Water pipe sparks Ethiopian conflict

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Water pipe sparks Ethiopian conflict Some 70,000 people have fled their homes in a remote part of southern Ethiopia, after a deadly conflict broke out between rival groups - apparently triggered by the construction of a new borehole. The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt has been to visit the affected areas. Wamo Boru and his family used to live in Kafa, one of the many small ethnic Borana communities scattered across the arid borderlands of southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. The hard red earth shows through the thin grass of the sun-baked landscape, a wide expanse of thorny scrub, flat-topped thorn-trees and tall red anthills. The Borana lead a hard life, especially in the past year or two, when rains have been poor. But the community had its livestock - cattle and camels and goats - and was expecting to have a better water supply when the Oromia regional government finished work on a new borehole in the area. But at the beginning of February they had - quite