Five tourists killed in Ethiopian shooting attack

Jan 18, 2012, 13:10 GMT

Addis Ababa - Five foreign tourists were killed and four kidnapped in an attack by gunmen in north-east Ethiopia, government spokesman Bereket Simon told dpa on Wednesday, pinning the blame on neighbouring Eritrea.

Those killed were two Germans, two Hungarians and an Austrian. Two Germans and two Ethiopians were also kidnapped, while an Italian and a Hungarian were injured in the attack in the Danakil desert, some 25 kilometres from the border with Eritrea, late Monday, he said.

Simon charged that the attack was carried out by 'gunmen trained by the Eritrean government,' Ethiopia's arch-rival.

'This is a repeated offense by the Eritrean government to destabilize the whole region,' Simon said.

He alleged that Asmara had tried to bomb an African Union (AU) summit in January 2011, and said his government was viewing the latest attack as an attempt to harm the next AU high-level meeting, scheduled for later this month.

The AU is headquartered in the Ethiopian capital.

Eritrean diplomats denied their country's involvement in the attack but declined to comment further. No group has claimed the shooting.

Germany said it was sending a member of the Federal Police Office to Addis Ababa to help with the investigations.

The attack occurred near volcanic sites in Danakil, one of the hottest and poorest regions of the world. It is populated by the nomadic Afar people.

In 2007, five Europeans - four Britons and a French citizen - were taken hostage in the area, but later released unharmed, in exchange for a ransom. Two years later, two Ethiopians were killed and a tourist injured when their car ran over a landmine in the region.

The bodies of the deceased were flown to Addis Ababa in the late afternoon. According to Ethiopian officials, the hostages may have been taken to Eritrea.

In Berlin, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle confirmed that two of his country's citizens had died and that some were still unaccounted for.

'I have to inform you that the fate of additional Germans who were part of the travel party remains unexplained,' Westerwelle said.

The Austrian Foreign Ministry had issued a regional travel warning for the region.

'We discourage travels to the Afar region for security reasons, especially trips to the Danakil Depression, as further incidents and abduction attempts are to be expected,' said an entry on the ministry website that was last modified in early December.

The German tour operator that some of the deceased tourists had used said it was stopping all travel to the affected region.

Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia in 1993, after years of conflict. The two nations then went to war again from 1998 until 2000, in a conflict that left more than 100,000 people dead.

Relations between the neighbours are strained and the two governments often accuse each other of malicious acts, including supporting local rebel groups who carry out attacks.