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A picture taken on February 2, 2012 shows International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies workers distributing aid to members of a community displaced by clashes at Kenya border-town with Ethiopia, Moyale. (Stinger/AFP/Getty Images)
At least 18 people were killed in communal violence in Ethiopia near the border with Kenya, prompting tens of thousands of people to stream across the border to flee the clashes.
“Most of the families are in the open cold with their children for lack of shelter,” the Red Cross said on Monday, according to Reuters. “The humanitarian situation is dire bearing in mind that the effects of the … drought on the populations in the conflict areas are also still being felt.”
The Red Cross said the fighting was caused by a land dispute between the Borana and Garri communities in southern Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian government intervened and some of the refugees started returning.
“The federal security forces are taking control of the security situation from regional security officials and they are looking for an amicable solution to the disputes,” Kenyan Red Cross secretary-general Abbas Gullet was quoted by the news agency as saying.
Nelly Muluka, a Kenyan Red Cross manager, said that less and less people have come to camps in Kenya from Ethiopia.
“We are not really receiving many people at the moment, but according to the Kenya Red Cross registration in the two camps, we have a figure of 33,000 people who have crossed from Ethiopia following the conflict,” Muluka told U.S.-government owned Voice of America reporter Mohammed Yusuf who is in Nairobi.
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