Over 100 killed in clashes in Ethiopia’s Afar, Somali regions

Over 100 People have repotedly been killed and several others sustained injuries after ethnic clashes erupted between Ethiopia’s Somali and Afar regions . The Federal government of Ethiopia has not yet spoken about these clashes while authorities from both regions accused each other of starting the conflict.

Somali state authorities said the latest conflict started on Friday when Afar special police officers attacked civilian Somali pastoralists for unknown reasons. Somaliland.com however can not independently verify this matter.

Ali Bedel, a spokesman for the Somali region, said 25 people had been killed on Friday and an “unknown number of civilians” died in a subsequent attack by the same forces on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Kaloyte of the Afar region, told the AFP news agency that Somali special police and militias raided an area known as Haruka, “indiscriminately firing on locals and killing more than 30 Afar civilian pastoralists” and injuring at least 50 more

“The local community then beat back the attackers and caught some of them red-handed,” temporarily restoring order, he said.

This is not the first time clashes between these two Ethnics in Ethiopia clashed. They had a similar conflict in 2014 after three small towns were transferred to Afar from Somali.

Also In October last year 27 people were killed in a wave of clashes over the border, with each side blaming the other. The federal government is also stuck on Tigray’s region issues for the past months.