Conflicts over land and water rights have caused clashes between local communities in the past
Ethnic clashes in southern Ethiopia are reported to have left at least 18 people dead and 12 others injured.
More than 20,000 people have crossed into Kenya to escape the fighting, the Kenyan Red Cross says.A spokesman told the BBC that people were continuing to cross the border although Ethiopian government forces had intervened to stop the fighting.
The clashes, in the Moyale area, are thought to have been sparked by a simmering dispute over land rights.
Fighting involving the Borana and Garri communities is said to have started mid-week, and to have continued until Friday.
Local reports speak of armed militias taking up positions in outlying villages on Wednesday, with the fighting spreading to Moyale town, on the Ethiopia-Kenya border, on Thursday.
Many of those who fled across the border into the Kenyan side of Moyale are having to sleep out in the open.
The Red Cross says it is providing those who have been displaced with food, water and tarpaulins.
Garri people do not want the Borana people to lay their feet on Garri people’s land because they belive most Borana people are infected from feet worm which is known in Ethiopia as the Moyale worm. Legend and historians say the feet worm got the name Moyale in Ethiopia because long time ago a foreigner person crossed the Kenya boarder into Ethiopia and dumped a suit case full of Feet (Moyale) worm inside the Moyale town. Since then the worm has been named Moyale to remember the town it has been dumped in. Currently the Moyale (feet) worm disease is present all over Ethiopia making it one of the most CONTAGIOUS medical challenges Ethiopians are facing.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your in put on the matter. with so many problems going on in the world right now its so hard for one to keep up with the history of them. thanks
ReplyDelete