Kidnapped Chinese Oil Workers Freed In Ethiopia

AFRICA NEWS

Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) fighters pose for a photograph in 2006. The ONLF has told AFP that it has released seven Chinese workers captured in an attack last week on an oil plant in eastern Ethiopia in which 77 people died. Photo courtesy AFP.

by Staff Writers
Addis Ababa (AFP) Apr 29, 2007
Kidnappers on Sunday released seven Chinese workers they abducted during an attack on an oil plant in eastern Ethiopia last week in which 77 people died. "We have released the Chinese at 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) today to the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross)," said Abderahmane Mahdi, the London-based spokesman for the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).

"They are safe and well they are now on their way to Jijiga," the provincial capital of Somali State in southeastern Ethiopia and home to the Ogaden rebels, Mahdi said.

One Somali and one Ethiopian captured in Tuesday's dawn raid were also freed, he said.

The ICRC in Addis Ababa confirmed that the workers had been handed over. The organisation said in a statement that they were taken to eastern Degehabur, where they were to spend the night before heading to Addis Ababa on Monday.

A temporary ceasefire was arranged between the ONLF and the Ethiopian army -- with the ICRC acting as mediator -- to facilitate the handover, Mahdi said.

The Ethiopian information ministry again accused arch-foe Eritrea, with whom they have a long-running border dispute, of being behind the raid.

"The release of the kidnapped came through the joint efforts made by Ethiopian Somali elders and the ICRC. Released hours ago, the released hostages have now arrived at the town of Degehabur," it said in a statement.

"ONLF perpetrated the horrendous act of terrorism in a plot orchestrated by the government in Asmara."

The attack, which left 68 Ethiopian workers and nine Chinese dead, was the first on an oil site since the ONLF issued a threat to foreign companies operating in the region a year ago.

Meanwhile on Sunday, the bodies of the nine Chinese victims of the attack were flown back to their hometown in central China's Henan Province, China's official Xinhua agency reported.

On Friday, a senior government official said the Ethiopian army had surrounded three sites suspected to be ONLF operating grounds, but the group warned that any heavy-handed attempt to free the oil workers would endanger their lives.

"There was no military operation. No Ethiopian movement so far," Mahdi said.

Earlier in the week, the ONLF said that they wanted to hand over the Chinese hostages as soon as possible without any demands and that the attack on the plant was not targeting China.

But it called on Peking to stop cooperating with Addis Ababa on oil exploration until it gains legitimate self-government in Ogaden.

The ONLF wants independence for ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia's eastern Ogaden region, which is part of the Somali region.

Sinopec, the parent company of Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, operator of the Ogaden oil venture, said Thursday it had no plans to pull out of the resource-rich region despite the attack.

Predominantly barren, the Ogaden has long been extremely poor, but in recent years the discovery of gas and oil has brought both hopes of wealth, and new causes of conflict.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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United Nations (UPI) April 18, 2007
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