He said that the assailants had also taken 2,000 head of livestock.
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“The Ethiopian defense force is now chasing after the perpetrators”, Reda said, according to the Associated Press.
Ethiopian government officials said their troops are on the hunt for the attackers. It is also home to Ethiopian and South Sudanese armed groups that regularly attack government installations and soldiers.
He said 60 of the assailants have been killed in clashes with Ethiopian troops.
The perpetrators were allegedly members of South Sudan’s Murle ethnic group, Ethiopia’s communications minister Getachew Reda said on Saturday.
The Murle, a tribe from South Sudan based in the eastern Jonglei region, often stage raids to steal cattle.
Ethiopia’s Gambella region hosts around 280,000 South Sudanese refugees, majority from the ethnic Nuer tribe, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
He said the attackers were not thought to have any links to the South Sudanese government or rebels.
The separation resulted in ethnic tensions, and in December 2013 sectarian conflict emerged months after President Salva Kiir sacked his deputy Riek Machar as vice president.
Located 50 kilometres from the South Sudanese border, Gambella is home to Ethiopian Nuers.
More than 284,000 refugees from South Sudan fled the conflict to Ethiopia and thousands have died in the civil war.
Under pressure from neighbouring states, the United States, the United Nations and other powers, South Sudan’s feuding sides signed an initial peace deal in August and agreed to share out ministerial positions in January.
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This reopened a political dispute and ethnic rifts between Kiir’s Dinka ethnic group and Machar’s Nuer. According to Reuters, Machar says he will return to the capital Juba Monday and create a transitional government with Kiir.
