There has been distorted and inaccurate reporting, especially by Somali media,
concerning recent violence in Moyale and surrounding districts in Borana zone
of southern Oromia Region.
Heavily-armed Somali militia and Somali Region forces, possibly aided by terrorist alShabaab fighters, killed Oromo residents and burned their homes in Moyale and surrounding districts from 21 to 30 October. Diqqoo Jaataan Aaagaa, a 13-year old girl, was killed after the Somali Region and Somalia national flags were raised at an office on the Oromo side of Moyale on 18 October. Her family was denied her body by Somali forces for several days.
Demonstrations by Oromo residents on 21 October were rapidly ended as the violence intensified. Although only nine deaths were reported by national and international media, many more died. On 25 October, a reliable informant sent OSG gruesome pictures of ten severed heads and the mutilated body of an Oromo policeman.
More than 50,000 residents fled over the border to Kenya by 1 November; thousands more to the towns of Yabelo, Mega, Bokku and Dubuluk.
There was little or no response from federal or regional Ethiopian forces. Indeed, federal troops killed five Oromo civilians in Borana zone on 10 October.
Borana Oromo have been pushed westward by Somali forces and lost much of their ancestral pastoral land, the cradle of the Oromo people and an important stronghold of Gadaa democracy, over the last 140 years.
However, inaccurate and hostile reports in Somali media claim the recent violence is due to ‘Oromo expansionism’ by an ‘Oromo government.’ Not only are these reports untrue – Oromo territory has shrunk and the Oromo people are targets of the regime of Abiy Ahmed (‘drying out the ocean to catch the fish’) – they are dangerously inflammatory.
In response to these reports, mobs in the city of Borama in Somaliland burnt down over 150 homes of Oromo refugees on 29 October,3 and thousands of refugees in Hargeisa fear an increase in violence from the host community.
Similarly misinformed accusations of Oromo Liberation Army involvement in the recent killing of 60 Ethiopian Orthodox Christians in Arsi zone of Oromia Region are designed to foment discord between Amhara and Oromo people.
Meanwhile, OSG is receiving desperate pleas for help from destitute and unsupported refugees in Yemen, who are suffering from fatal Saudi air attacks on Sana’a and on a migrant detention centre near the border in Sadaa. They are experiencing severe insecurity as Houthi
forces encircle Taiz and occupy the ‘war zone’ around the al-Kharaz refugee camp, north of Aden. Al Jazeera relayed a report from a Yemeni rights group that 189 civilians had been killed by Houthi militia between 1 September and 29 October.
Dr Trevor Trueman, Chair, OSG
osg@talktalk.net
+44 (0)7852 448337
1) Details of these and other killings will be included in OSG Report 75.
2) Prof. Galgalo Dika, Borana University, 2 November. https://addisstandard.com/contested-land-historicalgrievances-tracing-borana-pastoralists-territorial-loss-and-roots-of-moyale-conflict/
3) https://addisstandard.com/somaliland-officials-condemn-attacks-on-oromo-residents-in-borama-after-morethan-150-homes-reportedly-damaged/
4) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/31/new-yemen-fighting-displaces-290000-says-un-with-pregnantwomen-at-risk?
