Open Letter to UNHCR about the Bosaso Massacre
OromoNet - February 15, 2008

I am writing you this letter to express our deep concern and dismay regarding the inhuman massacre of around 100 Oromo Refugees and wounding of more than 65 in Bosaso, breakaway region of Somalia, on February 5, 2008. The basic reason Oromos flee and take refuge in neighboring countries is protection from persecution due to their national identity and their political belief in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, this is not being so for these refugees. The harassment, suffering, persecution and ill treatment of Oromos perpetrated by the Ethiopian regime is crossing international boundaries.

Oromo refugees are constantly being harassed, forcefully deported by would be host governments and murdered by assassin squads of TPLF/EPRDF government or by paid agents of Ethiopian government in Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and even Yemen, where they arrive after risking their lives on the high seas where about half of those who attempt to cross perish on a regular basis.

The current regime has made its policy clear from the very beginning when it assassinated Major Jatani Ali, an Oromo refugee, a former officer in the deposed Derg regime, in Nairobi in 1991. This was followed by assassination of Mr. Adam Tukale (Mullis Abbaa Gadaa), an OLF high-ranking official in Mogadishu, in 2000. They have acquired forceful repatriation of many prominent refugees who fled to the neighboring countries, whose destinies have never been known. Last year they assassinated many Oromo former journalists in Nairobi. The current mass massacre is a culmination of this policy of physically liquidating opposition individuals wherever they go ...