Reply #4: Gunmen Kill at Least 69 in Attack on Oilfield in Ethiopia

[oberliner]

BEIJING, April 24 -- Gunmen attacked a Chinese-run oilfield in Ethiopia early Tuesday, killing at least nine Chinese and more than 60 Ethiopian workers, according to the New China News Agency.

The official agency, in a dispatch it said was confirmed by the Chinese Embassy in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, reported more than 100 Ethiopian soldiers beat back the attackers in nearly an hour of shooting. The battle took place just after dawn in an oilfield at Abole, a small town the agency said lies 90 miles from Jijiga in Ethiopia's Somali State near the border with Somalia.

Xu Shuang, acting manager of the Zongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau of the China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., told the agency that, in addition to the fatalities, seven Chinese employees were believed kidnapped by the withdrawing assailants. He did not provide any casualty estimates for the Ethiopian soldiers guarding the oilfield.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042400604.html