Friday, January 04, 2008
Last September, a UN mission recommended an independent probe into allegations that the government had committed rights abuses in its clampdown on Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels.
"The US government Humanitarian Assistance Team is in Ethiopia to examine health, nutrition, food security, and water and sanitation conditions and livelihood issues in the Somali region in order to provide an impartial assessment of the current humanitarian situation and facilitate appropriate response efforts," a US embassy statement said.
Technical experts from USAID and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had arrived in Ethiopia on December 20, the statement said, adding that an initial four-day assessment in Jijiga and Degehabur zones started last week.
Ethiopia is seen as by Washington as a key regional ally in its "war on terror" and receives hundreds of millions of dollars each year in aid.
Aid and human rights groups have claimed widespread rights abuses and a humanitarian disaster after the Ethiopian army launched a crackdown in the region following an ONLF attack on a Chinese-run oil venture killed 77 people in April.
The government has fiercely denied those claims.
Since then, both sides have claimed to have killed large numbers of the other side but the reports cannot be confirmed as large swathes of the region are out of bounds for journalists and aid workers.
Formed in 1984, the ONLF is fighting for independence of ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden they say have been marginalised by Addis Ababa.
Source: AFP, Jan 03, 2007