The recent armed clash between Ethiopian, Kenyan and Somali resistance fighters in the regional strategically city of Mandera has rekindled the long waited regional war of the horn Africa. It is a Somali city located at the cross road between the three countries: Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Mandera was a central meeting point for all Ogadeans before the Scramble for Africa in 1880’s that divide them with artificial boarders. This the time bomb set by colonial powers that divided people of the region by artificial imaginary lines, thus separating families of the same clan.
When we talk about the Ogaden region of Ethiopia we have tenancy to forget the name Ogaden given to the region is a tribal name inside Somali populated region of Ethiopia. Today the whole region is named Somali region by the Ethiopian dictator Melese Zenawie since 1991. This is conspiracy against the Somalis by creating a condition similar to Balkans, where there is a country Macedonia and a region with the same name inside Greek. While there is already country called Somalia there is need to create another Somalia. The main purpose to name such ethnical region is to accelerate the dismemberment of Somalia itself. Another point to be raised it is not only in Ethiopia that Ogaden exists, but also in Kenya- the western Somali populated region of Kenya is also inhabited with same tribes of Ogadeni.
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On the 24th of February the Ethiopian mechanized forces supporting the newly trained Somali mercenaries are fighting the Somali insurgents not far from the border town of Mandera supported with heavy weapons. Melese Zenawie government has been involvement in Somali internal affairs since his accession to power in Ethiopia. He had officially started in its invasion of Somali in 2006 which he left after shameful defeat replacing himself with Burundi and Ugandan troops with the umbrella of the African Unity peace keepers. Both countries running UN resolved eternal ethnic rivalry and armed insurgency in their own land. The Melese Zenawie mercenary troops have just been caught in Tripoli and Bengasi supporting the falling killer of Libya and Cyrenaica, Mohammed Gaddafi.
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The Ethiopian troops are firing missiles to ensure the newly trained Somali mercenary troops are successfully deployed in Somalia to destabilize the already fragile country in the name of fighting “Islam extremism.” It is just a pretext to keep himself in power like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Ben Ali of Tunisia. Melese Zenawie is trying to divert the world attention to the newly open conflict on the cross road city of Mandera.
The Ethiopian dictatorial regime of Melese Zenawie has been training 2,000 Somali mercenaries since late 2009 to accomplish the unfinished job of Balkanizing Somalia to different factions. Melese has agreed to let Juba land to pass in the hands of Kenya, while unsuccessfully attempted to control Mogadishu. Since the fall of the central state of Somalia in 1989, Somaliland and Putland have already defacto declared their independence.
The border fighting for the reparation of Somalia between Kenya and Ethiopia has spilled over to the Kenyan town of Mender last Thursday. The tension was high in Mandera County since Wednesday morning as fears of spill-over of the fighting grip residents of Mandera town.
The fist bomb exploded at the Mandera District hospital on Thursday as heavy fighting continued between the different faction to control the border key town between Somalia rebels fighting against Ethiopian troops and their mercenaries with the support of Kenya fighting to control her Ogadeni region of Western territories. Local reporters have seen wounded Kenyans are rushed to be treated for bullet wounds while the authorities are denying their involvement in the conflict to control Somalia.
Kenya has increased its contingent by moving an army battalion around Mandera Town.
The conflict has reached the Kenyan border towns stretching to Kilima Fisi up to Hulugo Somalia Juba land crossing point near Lamu. These are the intersectional crossing to between the three borderline countries.
Beside the regular army Kenya just deployed security team comprising Kenya Army’s Rangers and Special Forces detachments, as well as the General Service Unit and Administration Police.
Two severely and four other Kenyan soldiers were also wounded. While Kenya like Ethiopia has trained its Somalis mercenaries, it won’t be long before the conflict spill over to Kenyan Somali region like Ogaden of Ethiopia.
According to the Kenyan minimizing news media:-
“One woman has been reported dead at Border Point One and 10 casualties are being treated at Mandera District Hospital,” Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet said in a statement.
He said the fighting that started at about 10am on Friday did not spare the Red Cross offices where several gun shots were fired, but no casualty was reported.
“Several gunshots flying in the air across the border have hit the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) offices in Mandera, where six members of staff are holed up, like many other residents of Mandera town,” Mr Gullet said.
“The gunshots have rocked the town, keeping residents and refugees indoors,” he said.
The Society’s Spokesman Titus Mung’ou said the situation had put the lives of humanitarian workers and other residents of Mandera town in grave danger.
“We have reported this latest incident to the Government and hope the KRCS offices, which have a Red Cross emblem flag hoisted on the rooftop, will be protected,” he said.
The Red Cross emblem is a protected symbol, under the Geneva Conventions, and all warring parties are required to respect it, he added.
“Hundreds of refugees are now scattered on the Kenyan side of the border, as it is risky to gather in camps until fighting ceases,” he said.
Hundreds of families began fleeing Mandera town Friday following the intense fighting that has been going on at the Kenya-Somalia border since Wednesday.
Reports from Mandera indicate that schools, government offices and hospitals had been shut for stray ammunition that has been hammering the border town.
A councilor who spoke to Capital News from Mandera said although no physical attacks had occurred in the town, residents were worried of the bullets that “are being fired from various directions whenever the troops are fighting the militiamen.”
On Thursday morning, eight people were struck by bullets fired by militia men who have been fighting AU troops on the Somalia side.
“It is scaring, you cannot know when a bullet will land near you and that is why people are running for safety,” the councilor who only identified himself as Ahmed said.
“Some houses have gone up in flames since morning and we don’t know who are burning them but we highly suspect it has something to do with what is going on at the border,” Ahmed added.
He said Mandera town remained deserted for the better part of Friday and only military and police trucks were seen parked strategically with heavily armed officers.
“People are running towards remote areas far away from Mandera, we don’t want to become victims,” he added “This place now is inhabitable, there are heavy gunfire renting the air every after a couple of hours.
The situation was made worse when a bomb was hurled at the Mandera district hospital but no one was hurt because it landed on an open field.
North Eastern Provincial Commissioner Joseph ole Serian told Capital News that the bomb could have caused a major disaster “were it not that it landed on an open field.”
“The hospital covers a large area, we are lucky it landed on an open ground, it could have been disastrous,” ole Serian said on telephone from where he was coordinating security.
Some 14 African Union soldiers flown from Mogadishu were still admitted to hospitals in Mombasa where they have been receiving treatment for bullet wounds since Thursday.
Military Spokesman Bogita Ongeri told Capital News they had enhanced security at the border towns to stop Al-Shabaab fighters from liberating from controlling western Kenya.
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The Kenyan soldiers fought the Somali resistance fighters who had tried to stop them from controlling the Somali region of Kenya seven were injured.
The best and the lasting solution for the region is non ignorance in the internal affair of Somalis by the different neighboring counties like Ethiopia and Kenya in order not further radicalize the situation.
The strategic city of Mandera would be the Waterloo of Melese Zenawie and the Kenyan election killers who are trying to divert the internal situation to this undue conflict by calling for intervention the embattled western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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