April 21, 2016- Ethiopia’s army has surrounded the area in neighbouring South Sudan where it believes more than 100 abducted Ethiopian children are being held, local media report.
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Baba Medan, the governor of South Sudan’s Boma state, where Murle and other groups live, said dissident members of the Cobra faction were responsible.
A government statement blames armed militants of South Sudan’s Murle tribe for having “infiltrated” across the border between the two countries.
David Yau Yau, who led the Cobra rebellion, denied any involvement of his former troops and accused the governor.
“The Ethiopian defense force is now chasing after the perpetrators”, said Reda, adding that there is no relation between the attackers and the South Sudanese government or the country’s rebels.
Dlamini-Zuma has demanded the immediate and unconditional release of the women and children abducted from Ethiopia.
“The atrocities committed by an armed Murle tribe from South Sudan claimed the lives of 208”, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said on state television on Sunday evening, increasing the death toll from an earlier estimate of 140.
“People have been displaced from their villages”, said Reda, who returned from the region where the raids took place.
Mr Reda did not confirm these reports however.
South Sudan’s two major ethnic groups, the Dinka and the Nuer, have been locked in a civil war since 2013.
“I would like to tell the people of South Sudan, their government, the people of Ethiopia and their government, the region and the global community that Cobra faction is no longer a separate force”. More than 200 people were killed in those attacks.
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Last week’s deadly raid has unleashed a wave of anger and boosted fears that the civil war raging in South Sudan could spill over the border.
