Four stories (updated to reflect a newer version of the one from the AP):
From the AP, reprinted on Sudan Tribune...
(The earlier version is also still available on ST.)
Rebels launched a string of raids in the southwestern corner of Ethiopia, killing some 30 people, including a state police chief and four civilians, diplomats said Monday.
The pro-government media said four police officers were killed and at least six officers were wounded during Sunday’s pre-dawn attacks on a police station, a prison and a Roman Catholic church compound in Gambella, an underdeveloped, swampy, malaria-infested lowland region of this Horn of Africa nation.
The dead include members of a local militia and police officers. Rebels freed colleagues in a police jail, but were unable to release those in the main prison in Gambella’s main town. It was unclear how many people were being held in those jails, Western diplomats said.
Ethiopian security forces were fighting the rebels Monday afternoon in Lare, a town near the border with Sudan, the diplomats said.
"Members of the defense forces and the Federal Police are in hot pursuit of the culprits," Senday Gach, a police official, told the pro-government Walta Information Center.
Rebels from the semi-nomadic Anuak community have been fighting Ethiopian police and army troops in Gambella, accusing the security forces of human rights abuses. In March, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said Ethiopian troops have committed widespread killings, rapes and torture of the Anuak population in Gambella since late 2003.
Numerous attacks by soldiers and civilians from other ethnic groups have killed more than 500 people and driven several thousand Anuaks from their homes in the region, said Human Rights Watch investigator Chris Albin-Lackey.
In December 2003, civilians attacked several Anuak villages, killing more than 400 people, Albin-Lackey said. Ethiopian soldiers responded to the massacre by attacking more Anuak villages, Albin-Lackey said.
From the BBC...
Gunmen in south-western Ethiopia killed four police officers and prison warders, government officials say.
The killings took place during an overnight raid on a prison in Gambella, 450km from Addis Ababa.
The attacks were blamed on rebels from the semi-nomadic minority Anuak community who have been fighting against the security forces.
Diplomats in Addis Ababa told the AFP news agency they believed the death toll had been much higher.
They said gunmen had attacked a Catholic church before moving to the police station and then a prison, where they freed an unknown number of prisoners.
Conflict
"Anti-peace forces attacked a police station in Gambella town and killed four members of the police, including the state police commissioner, and wounded six others," Gambella state security chief Senday Gach told the official Ethiopian News Agency.
"Members of the defence forces and the federal police are in hot pursuit of the culprits," he said.
"The culprits are those forces who incited the last conflict in the state."
Gambella, a lowland region whose indigenous population is ethnically distinct from the rest of the country, has been a scene of conflict for several years.
Earlier this year Human Rights Watch said the Ethiopian army had been killing, raping and torturing civilians in Gambella since the beginning of 2003.
Four police officers were killed when heavily-armed gunmen, believed to be from Ethiopia's Anuak tribe, raided a police station in Gambella, about 450km from Addis Ababa, officials said on Monday.
"Anti-peace forces attacked a police station in Gambella town and killed four members of the police, including the state police commissioner, and wounded six others," Gambella state security chief Senday Gach said.
"Members of the defence forces and the federal police are in hot pursuit of the culprits," he told the official Ethiopian News Agency.
"The culprits are those forces who incited the last conflict in the state."
Diplomats in the capital said they believed the death toll had been much higher and that the gunmen had attacked a Catholic church before hitting the police station and then a prison where they freed an unknown number of inmates.
They "were well-armed and well-organised" and "shot around 20 people dead," one diplomat said, adding that details of the incident were still sketchy due to the remoteness of the region which has been the site of previous violence.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three police officers had been killed outside the church at the start of the rampage around 1am on Monday (22h00 GMT on Sunday).
Tensions in Gambella between the indigenous Anuak population and federal as well as regional authorities have been festering since late 2003 when the army launched a bloody crackdown on the tribe after the massacre of about 400 civilians.
Human rights groups have said the crackdown, which targeted armed Anuak groups responsible for attacks in the region, spilled out of control when the army started beating men, raping women and looting property.
The Ethiopian army angrily rejected the accusations.
From Reuters...
Rebels in southwestern Ethiopia killed four policemen including a regional police chief in an attack on a police station, the pro-government Walta Information Centre news agency said on Monday.
Six policemen were wounded in the attack on Sunday in Gambella town, capital of remote, politically volatile Gambella state, the agency quoted a regional security officer as saying, adding that one of the four killed was the state's police chief.
"Anti-peace forces attacked on Sunday a police station in Gambella town and killed four members of the police, including the state police commissioner," the agency said.
The agency gave no word on the suspected identity of the attackers. Police and security sources in Addis Ababa could not immediately be reached for comment on the Walta report.
The government had said more than 50 people were killed in Gambella in December 2003 in a clash between government forces and rebels it said were supported by neighbouring Eritrea.
However, New York-based human rights group Human Rights Watch said Ethiopian soldiers had actually murdered, raped and tortured hundreds of people during unrest in late December 2003 and early 2004.
The group said Ethiopian soldiers from highland areas were attacking Anuak lowlanders in retaliation for ambushes staged by Anuak rebels in Gambella, amid a climate of ethnic tensions between highlanders and lowlanders.
Human Rights Watch said the unrest had forced 6,000 people to flee Gambella, with many crossing into Kenya and Sudan.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has dismissed as "fiction" allegations that his army was involved in killings in Gambella.
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