Rebels stormed a Chinese-run oil field at dawn in eastern Ethiopia yesterday, killing 74 workers and destroying the facility, a guerrilla group and government officials said.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front, an ethnic Somali group that has fought alongside insurgents in Somalia, also kidnapped seven Chinese workers, senior Ethiopian government official Bereket Simon said.
"This was a cold-blooded killing," Bereket, a special adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said. "This was organized."
The rebel group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to the Associated Press, saying it had launched "military operations against units of the Ethiopian armed forces guarding an oil exploration site" in the east of the country. It also warned all international oil companies not to operate in the region. It did not give any details of casualties, but said they had "wiped out" three Ethiopian military units.
China's official Xinhua news agency identified the Chinese workers and Ethiopian guards as employees of the Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, a division of China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, a huge state-run oil company better known as Sinopec.
Xu Shuang, the general manager of Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, based in Addis Ababa, said nine of its Chinese oil workers were killed, seven Chinese workers were kidnapped and 65 Ethiopians were killed in the fighting.
The Zhongyuan official, whose company began working in Ethiopia's volatile Somali Regional State last year, declined to give further details of the attack.
The attack took place early yesterday morning in Abole, a small town 120km away from the state's capital Jijiga, close to the Somali border. Bereket said several Ethiopian troops were wounded in the gunbattle.
"The army is pursuing them. We will track them down dead or alive. We will make sure these people will be hunted and be brought to justice," he said.
He said the group was also linked to the Eritrean government, which Ethiopia has repeatedly accused of waging terror attacks. Eritrea denies the claims.
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