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KHARTOUM, Sudan, Sept. 2 — A powerful rebel group in the Ogaden desert of Ethiopia has declared a temporary cease-fire to allow a United Nations fact-finding team to gain access to the war-torn region, a rebel spokesman said Sunday.
Fighters from the group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, will not attack government soldiers while United Nations officials are in the area, said Abdirahman Mahdi, a spokesman for the rebels.
“We appreciate what they are doing and won’t put any obstacle in their path,” he said.
The Ogaden desert is a desolate corner of eastern Ethiopia where impoverished nomads are waging a separatist war against the Ethiopian Woyanne military, one of the biggest armies in Africa. After the rebels killed more than 60 Ethiopian Woyanne guards and Chinese workers at a Chinese-run oil field in April, government troops cracked down by blockading much of the area, Western diplomats and aid workers say.
Many Ogaden residents have described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will, accusations that the Ethiopian Woyanne government vehemently denies.
Concerned by the reports of human rights abuses and the risks of a government-made famine, United Nations officials set off last week on a fact-finding mission to the Ogaden. The mission included human rights officers and experts in child welfare, food and health.
The Ethiopian Woyanne government has said it has nothing to hide, though several aid organizations have recently complained about lack of access to the Ogaden. On Friday, Doctors Without Borders, an international aid agency, said its workers were being blocked from the region.
The agency said in a statement that there were “urgent health needs and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis” in the Ogaden and that “despite a signed agreement” with the group, the Ethiopian Woyanne authorities continued to deny it access to the area.
In July, the Ethiopian Woyanne government expelled the Red Cross from the Ogaden, accusing its workers of being rebel spies.
An Ethiopian Woyanne spokesman, Zemedkun Tekle, said Sunday that he did not know which aid organizations had been restricted but that “the U.N. mission will be free to conduct its work.”