Ethiopian region says Red Cross warned repeatedly

ADDIS ABABA, July 25, 2007 – The Ethiopian regional government that ejected the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from the restive Ogaden region said on Wednesday it repeatedly warned the aid agency against consorting with rebels.

Tuesday's expulsion shocked humanitarian groups working in the desolate area bordering Somalia, where a guerrilla group has accused the Ethiopian authorities of blockading food relief, choking commercial trade and risking a "man-made famine".

"The Somali regional government had repeatedly warned the ICRC team to desist from a smear campaign against the regional government and from supplying materiel and finance to a rebel group attempting to destabilize the region," Nur Abdi Mohammed, the regional government's spokesman, told Reuters by telephone.

Nur said the ICRC was given seven days to leave Ogaden after staff failed to heed official warnings. "Their two offices in Jijiga and Gode are closed as we speak," he said.

So far, ICRC officials have only said they are in talks with the government to get the order reversed.

Ogaden is a parched landscape with few roads that is populated largely by nomadic camel herders and is effectively off-limits to most human rights workers and journalists. It is ethnically a Somali area.

On Tuesday, the U.N. World Food Programme said Ethiopia's government was not stopping aid reaching the region, but that it and other donors were worried trade restrictions combined with seasonal floods could still trigger a humanitarian crisis.

The movement of aid workers has been severely restricted since May when the military launched a crackdown on Ogaden National Liberation Front rebels, who say they are fighting for autonomy for their homeland -- the poorest part of Ethiopia.

The group drew global attention in April when it raided a Chinese-run oil exploration field in Ogaden, killing 74 people and kidnapping seven Chinese workers. They were later freed.

Source: Reuters