Ethiopian troops searched for a rebel group yesterday that attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration facility, killing 74 people and taking at least six Chinese workers prisoner, the first such attack against a foreign company in the country.
China also condemned the attack, which took place early on Tuesday in Abole, a small town 500km east of Addis Ababa.
Bereket Simone, special adviser to Ethiopia's prime minister, said a rescue operation was under way.
"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 late on Tuesday.
Tuesday's attack by more than 200 rebel fighters lasted about an hour, and followed a warning the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) made last year against any investment in eastern Ethiopia's Ogaden area.
In recent years, the front has only made occasional hit-and-run attacks against government troops, making Tuesday's attack its most significant to date. Formed from Ethiopia's minority Somalis, some members of the group have fought alongside insurgents in Somalia and have fought for the secession of the Ogaden region since the early 1990s.
The volatile Somali Regional State, as the Ogaden is known, "is not a safe environment for any oil exploration to occur," the group said in a statement.
"ONLF forces rounding up Ethiopian military prisoners following the battle came across six Chinese workers. They have been removed from the battlefield for their own safety and are being treated well," the group said in an e-mailed statement.
Ethiopia is not an oil-producing country. But companies such as the Chinese one and Malaysia's state-owned oil giant Petronas have signed exploration deals.
"The Chinese government strongly condemns this atrocious armed attack, mourns for the Chinese and Ethiopian victims and expresses deep sympathies to their families and those injured in the attack," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (
China had asked Ethiopia to work for the safe return of the workers, Liu said, adding that the ministry, the Ministry of Commerce and the Chinese embassy in Addis Ababa had formed an emergency team to deal with the incident.
The Xinhua news agency earlier reported that the attackers fought 100 Ethiopian soldiers protecting the facility in a 50-minute gunbattle. It said the company had 157 Chinese and Ethiopian workers at the facility.
Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau is a division of the giant state-owned China Petroleum and Chemical Corp that began its operations in Ethiopia in May 2004, its Web site said.
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