Hiiraan Online
By Shafi’i Mohyaddin
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
The Ogaden national Liberation front (ONLF), a separatist rebel group fighting Ethiopian forces, said that Ethiopian intelligence services have abducted two of its officials from the Kenyan capital Nairobi earlier this week. The ONLF Officials were in Nairobi for a proposed third round of talks.
The group’s foreign affairs secretary Abdirahman Sheik Mahdi told the VOA Somali service that the two abducted officials were members of the ONLF negotiation team responsible for the group’s reconciliation talks with the Ethiopian government.
“The two men were abducted from Nairobi; they normally live in Kenya with their families, they disappeared and we assume the two officials have been kidnapped by Ethiopian Intelligence,” said Mr. Mahdi in his interview with VOA Somali service via phone from London on Tuesday.
He identified one of the abducted men as Sulub Abdi Ahmed, the leader of the ONLF negotiation team and an unnamed person whom he said was his aide. He noted that the mobile phones of the two men went off air. “We assume they are now being held somewhere in Ethiopia,” said Mahdi in his interview with VOA Somali service on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Mr Mahdi denied recent reports that the two ONLF officials were intercepted as they were crossing from the Kenyan side of the border into Ethiopia. The reports were published by some internet news portals supporting the Somali regional administration in Ethiopia.
“These are false speculations. There is no reason for the officials to cross into Ethiopia as they are normally living in Kenya with their families—we have great confidence in the two individuals who have been involved in the fight against Ethiopia for more than 20 years,” the ONLF foreign affairs secretary Mr. Sulub Abdi Ahmed added.
Email: [email protected]