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Ethiopia - Following is the full text of the statement issued by the Ministry of Information Ethiopia on the latest terrorist attacks:

Terrorist Group ONLF massacred 74 in Ogaden, Ethiopia

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Anti-peace elements have massacred 65 civilian Ethiopians and 9 Chinese citizens in a terror ambush

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi spoke during a news conference in Addis Ababa Tuesday.
Andrew Heavens/Reuters

Around 5:00 A.M. yesterday (Monday April 23), the forces of terror ambushed the employees of a Chinese Company exploring petroleum at Abule area in Degehabur zone, Eastern Ethiopia, to have indiscriminately massacred 65 Ethiopians and 9 Chinese citizens, all innocent civilian victims of the attacks that befell a whole camp that was about to wake up for the day’s work. They have also kidnapped Chinese and Ethiopian civilians – seven in all. Members of the National Defense Forces who were on the look out at the area in their few numbers have also been victimized by the heinous terror ambush.

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The perpetrator of the terrorist attack on the Chinese and Ethiopian workers at the petroleum exploration and development project site is the self-styled Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a terrorist wing which is part of the front of destruction led by the Eritrean Government. This massacre of our innocent civilian citizens and Chinese development workers is an ambush of cowardice similar in its terrorist motive to that perpetrated earlier on at an area in the northeastern part of our country. This latest terrorist attacks is much more horrendous, however, than the preceding act of terrorism.

This massacre is a brainchild of those losers who, in their envy of the large-scale development activities underway in Ethiopia, are desperately bent on discouraging the flow of Foreign Direct Investment into our country, and, if they could, they would rather bring our development to a standstill. Hand-in-glove with the Eritrean Government, which hates to see Ethiopia’s development, the terrorist forces in the region have acted out this horrendous act of terror in their grudge of the development advances being gained in the Somali Regional State and the popular gains thereof.

Ethiopia has been victim of repeated, covert terror attacks. The acts of terror targeting the country have been worsening since the time the Eritrean Government, a member of the United Nations, has delved into being the leader and coordinator of terrorism being unleashed in the sub-region. The United Nations has not been seen to take the measure it is required on its member, the Eritrean Government, which has gone astray. The least the UN ought to have done to stop this rogue government from its moves of destruction was censure. Thus emboldened, the Sha’ebia-led terrorists in our region, have once again repeated their routine acts of terror on the innocent civilian Ethiopians and the Chinese citizens too far away from home in their civilian line of duty.

Our development endeavors will not be stopped by such acts of terror being masterminded by the Eritrean government and perpetrated by its cliques. In spite of such attempts of evil to detract the country’s development path, our successful struggle against poverty will continue unperturbed, and the perpetrators of such a heinous act of terror will not go unpunished. Our defense forces will sooner track down on and bring to justice those involved in massacring our citizens and the Chinese.

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is greatly distressed by this horrendous massacre of the Ethiopian and Chinese innocent victims. The Government of Ethiopia would like to express its empathy with the families affected by the indiscriminate massacre and to the friendly people of China. Condolences to the beareved!

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