Issue No. 5

The longest internal border in Ethiopia, over 1,400 kilometres, stretches from the town of Mieso in the north to the city of Moyale on the Kenyan border in the south, between the Oromia and Somali regions. Like many internal borders in Ethiopia, it is closely linked with political and ethnic identities, and it has witnessed recurring violence since its initial delineation in the 1990s. Reasons for this violence are complex but have often centred on disproportionate regional development, competition over increasingly scarce resources, and territorial claims. Both Oromo and Somali politicians have sought to capitalise on these divisions, which have displaced over one million people and killed thousands more.
 
The latest border area to see instability and armed confrontation is in the Babile district, encompassing both an administrative area in the East Harafghe zone in Oromia and the Fafan zone in the Somali region. The violence began in mid-September 2023 when Oromo regional police and militia clashed with Somali regional police, initially in the Abu Sherif kebele, before fighting spread to rural areas between the towns of Babile and Bombas. The armed forces also clashed in the Koloji Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, killing several civilians, including at least two children. Armed skirmishes have since rumbled on in rural border areas.
 
The trigger for these clashes between regional forces is contentious. For many Oromo, this is a case of Somali authorities encroaching on their border with the Somali region, by shifting a checkpoint taxing khat from Karamara towards Babile. Many Somalis have countered that Oromo forces attacked the Koloji camp unprovoked and that they are attempting to further displace the IDPs from the border. Oromo forces were reportedly particularly responsible for civilian deaths in Koloji, but the civilians were caught in what the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has since described as an “exchange of fire” between the forces.
 
The Koloji camp houses tens of thousands of mostly Somali IDPs who were displaced by previous waves of border violence, primarily in 2017-2018. The camp lacks basic infrastructure and facilities, including clean water, sanitation and electricity. And the suspension of international food aid to Ethiopia by the World Food Programme and USAID since June 2023 has further exacerbated the humanitarian crises facing IDPs there.
 
Inter-communal violence between eastern Oromo and Somali communities dates back decades, but many share Islam and a pastoralist tradition. The institutionalisation of ethnicity post-1991, through the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front’s ethno-federal system, however, crystallised their divisions along ethnic lines. Suddenly cattle raids were not just carried out by one pastoralist community against another; they were carried out across contested internal borders. Much of the previous Oromo-Somali cooperation and nuance in their relations was lost.
 
The Federal Government of Ethiopia eventually mediated the competing boundary claims, bringing them to a referendum in October 2004 in 456 border kebeles. But the referendum, failed to decisively demarcate the border. Many Somalis claimed that the referendum, the results of which assigned 93 kebeles to the Somali regional state and 323 to Oromia, had been manipulated by Addis. They subsequently refused to accept the results. While the referendum briefly brought relative stability, intermittent violence has continued in the nearly two decades since.
 
On the surface, the most recent violence appears to be just another episode in a long-running border dispute between the two regions. Yet while these regional forces have been fighting, the President of Oromia Shimeles Abdisa and the President of the Somali Region Mustafa Mohammed Omar, attended a Prosperity Party conference. Both are deeply unpopular in their regions, and Mustafa, a former ally of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, appears to have been increasingly sidelined in recent months. With Ethiopia’s federal parliament set to reopen on 10 October, and Abiy reportedly keen to reshuffle his cabinet, the presence of these two regional presidents together has raised questions regarding the nature of the current violence. Their seeming indifference to violence in their regions, whether orchestrated or not, raises several questions about why neither called back their forces from the border.
 
At times when central government authority has appeared diminished, regional politicians have sometimes attempted to exploit Ethiopia’s instability to settle past grievances and further their agendas. For example, in 2017-18, former Somali regional president Abdi Mohamed Omar ‘Iley’ exacerbated border violence during the Qeerroo youth movement to fortify his position, in part due to fear of growing Oromo influence over profitable cross-border trade.
 
One calculation may be that Abiy would be reluctant to remove Mustafa if clashes continue, to avoid suggestion that he is favouring his own ethnic group, the Oromo. A border flare-up and hard-line stance could also allow Shimeles to reassert his own Oromo credentials, as he faces an Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) insurgency in western and northern Oromia. Mustafa’s and Shimeles’ unwillingness, or inability, to reign in their forces, with barely a comment from Addis, is a sign of a country unable to reach common political settlements.
 
Still, there remain pragmatic solutions that could be pursued to help ‘de-ethnicise’ the Oromia-Somali regional state border. First, it could certainly help to complete the border demarcation, with input from a range of stakeholders, not just regional and federal politicians. Greater clarity over borders would lower the potential for violence erupting from something as minor as checkpoint positioning. Second, it is important to allow greater freedom of movement between the two regions, reflecting the nomadic and pastoralist communities that often cross the border. Incorporating affected communities into these discussions, particularly the long-term displaced in Koloji, would help temper emotions along the border. But none of these policies will get anywhere if regional politicians are allowed to exploit instability and violence for their own gain.