Ethiopia: Kidnap of embassy workers (updated April 24, 2007)

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Five UK embassy workers (three UK men, one Italian-UK woman, and a French woman) and eight local guides, translators and drivers, were kidnapped in Ethiopia, near the border with Eritrea, on March 1, 2007. The five embassy workers were released unharmed on March 13 and in a statement reported on March 15, expressed concern for the eight Ethiopians. It was not until April 23 that the eight Ethiopians were also released. It was thought that the embassy workers, who had been on a sightseeing tour, had not been targeted specifically, but had been seized opportunistically by an armed group that had set out to rob a local tax office. The Eritrean authorities named the kidnappers as the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF) but said that no ransom had been paid. Afar leaders had previously claimed that the kidnappers were Eritrean soldiers, an accusation repeated by the Ethiopian authorities, according to reports on March 15.

Immediate context

The simmering border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea worsened in 2006, despite international efforts to broker a permanent settlement. On Oct. 30, 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that war between the two countries (which had claimed 70,000 lives between 1998 and 2000) could soon reignite unless meaningful talks were held.The kidnappings occurred in the Afar region, which straddled the Ethiopia-Eritrea border, dividing the Afar's traditional territory. The Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF) had supported the overthrow of the regime of Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.However, ARDUF opposed the independence of Eritrea, as the creation of the new country had split the traditional Afar homeland between Eritrea and Ethiopia. ARDUF instead called for an autonomous Afar homeland, which would comprise parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. Rebel groups in the area had abducted foreigners in 1995 and 1983.

Despite the lack of any permanent peace settlement, the UN had recently reduced the level of troops in the region provided by the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). The level of peacekeeping forces had also been reduced in May 2006.

Reaction and outlook

A UK Foreign Office spokesman on March 14 expressed relief that the group had been released unharmed and thanked the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea for their co-operation. Further expressions of relief were issued in response to the release of the eight Ethiopians, who had been held by their kidnappers until April 23. On March 7 the Foreign Office had stated that it suspected the group had been taken in a case of mistaken identity. On March 12, the day before the hostages were released, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had issued a statement saying that the hostages had not been harmed and that efforts had been made to contact the kidnappers. Following the group's release, the governor of the Afar region denied that ARDUF was active in the area, despite the assertion by the Ethiopian information ministry that ARDUF was responsible for the abductions. Eritrea's President Issaias Afewerki on March 14 denied claims by Afar leaders of Eritrean military involvement in the kidnapping.

Historical context

Eritrean separatists fought a war of secession from Ethiopia from 1962 until 1993 when Eritrea became independent. Despite the achievement of independence, simmering tensions with Ethiopia persisted, especially over the demarcation of the border. This escalated into a major conflict in February 1999.A peace agreement was signed on June 18, 2000, thereby ending two years of hostilities which, it was estimated, had cost the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides. However, tensions over the location of the border continued. In March 2006 Eritrean and Ethiopian officials attended a meeting in London--the first time in three years that the two sides had met face-to-face to discuss demarcation of their disputed border.The Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF), formed in 1993, kidnapped a group of Italian tourists in 1995, later releasing them unharmed. The Afar Liberation Front (ALF) had participated in Eritrea's separatist war against Ethiopia from 1975 to 1991.Another, separate, Afar insurgency was mounted in 1991 to 1994 in neighbouring Djibouti by The Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD). An offshoot of FRUD continued to fight the government of Djibouti until 2000.

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