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Showing posts from January 18, 2012

Rights group: Ethiopia forcibly resettled 70,000

By LUC VAN KEMENADE, Associated Press – Tue Jan 17, 9:59 am ET ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Ethiopia has forcibly moved tens of thousands of semi-nomadic people in the country's west to barren villages and threatened, assaulted and arrested those who resisted, an international rights group said in a report Tuesday. The Human Rights Watch report said that Ethiopia last year resettled about 70,000 people in its western Gambella region after the first of a three-year "villagization" program. The rights group said it suspects people have been moved to lease out farmland to investors, and not just to lift them out of poverty. It said that security forces "repeatedly threatened, assaulted, and arrested villagers" who resisted relocation. The watchdog also reported rape, killing of cattle and burning of houses among rights violations. Instead of the promised improved life with "access to basic socio-economic infrastructures," locals found new villages that lacked

Tourists killed in Ethiopia attack - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Tourists killed in Ethiopia attack - Africa - Al Jazeera English Unknown assailants killed five foreign tourists in Ethiopia's northeastern Afar region, state television reported. The foreigners, whose nationalities were not immediately known, were killed on Monday in the remote region bordering Eritrea, Ethiopian Television (ETV) said on Tuesday, citing the defence ministry. ETV said two tourists were injured severely and have been brought to a health clinic by defence forces. They are in critical condition, the television said. Another tourist survived the attack unharmed. ETV suggested that the attackers were rebels with ties to Ethiopia's archrival Eritrea, which hosts the exiled Oromo Liberation Front, a rebel group listed as a terrorist organisation by the Ethiopian government. Ethiopia's foreign ministry acknowledged tourists had been attacked in the Afar region but said it didn't have any further details about the attack or the victims' nationalities. 'E