Hundreds of Ethiopians Flee Into Kenya After Fighting in Border Town of Moyale

Hundreds of Ethiopians have fled into Kenya after fighting broke out in Moyale, a town that sits on the border between the two countries, Kenyan officials and the Kenya Red Cross said on Thursday, October 22.

Most of those who crossed were women and children. They entered Kenya through several points around Moyale, including the Sessi, Kore, Biashara, Foundation and Miti areas, Kenyan police said. Many are staying with relatives and well-wishers in villages on the Kenyan side of the town, according to Stanley Kamande, the commissioner for Kenya's Marsabit County.

"We have hundreds of people from Ethiopia, mainly children and women," Kamande told Reuters.

Fighting heard a day after it started

The fighting broke out on Wednesday, October 21, on the Ethiopian side of the town, residents said. Gunfire could still be heard in parts of Moyale on Thursday, a day later. Moyale straddles the frontier. One part of the town lies in Ethiopia and the other in Kenya, and the settlement serves as the main border post on the road between Nairobi and Addis Ababa.

Reuters reported that it was not immediately clear what started the fighting, and officials in Ethiopia's Oromia Region were not reachable for comment. Kenyan police said the people crossing the border were fleeing tensions between leaders of Ethiopia's Oromia and Somali regional states. Ethiopian media reported that the fighting began as a dispute over the raising of the flag of the Somali Regional State in the town on Sunday, October 18, and that the dispute grew into clashes between forces from the Oromia and Somali regions.

Red Cross sets up shelter and food aid

The Kenya Red Cross said it was setting up temporary shelter for the displaced families and handing out basic supplies, including cereal and porridge flour. The first phase of the response will reach 1,000 households, the Red Cross said. Its teams are also assessing how many people have been affected and what they need most.

"No camp is ready to host those displaced but we shall most definitely work on it," Red Cross official Ibrae John told Reuters.

A border with a long history of tension

Moyale sits where the traditional territories of Oromo and Somali communities meet, and control of land and pasture around the town has caused conflict before. The new fighting is in the south of Ethiopia, hundreds of kilometres from the separate war in the northern Tigray region, where government forces face a rebel alliance led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

Neither the Ethiopian federal government nor the two regional governments had issued a public account of the Moyale fighting by Thursday night. Kenyan officials gave no figure for deaths or injuries, and neither wire report carried a confirmed casualty count.