MOYALE (Halbeeg News) – The government of Ethiopia and Kenya have discussed means to stabilise the conflict-ravaged Moyale border area.
The town on the border between the countries had many deadly conflicts that claimed many lives in recent past years.
The two-day conference which will be concluded today is expected to deliberate on ways of ensuring sustainable peace by uncovering causes of the complex, violent conflicts in Ethio-Kenya border areas.
The conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, the officials from the two east African nations on Wednesday emphasised on the need to employ concerted efforts to ensure sustainable peace that enables addressing poverty and development challenges of cross-border communities of the two countries.
Among the participants of the meeting were parliamentarians, local authorities, and community elders.
Speaking at the conference, Mohamud Mohamed Ali, Governor of Kenya’s Marsabit county said the conflict in one area had been seen to have a spillover effect on the other.
“It is our recent memory that the violence in Moyale whether it is the result of inter-community or inter-communal conflict at the cross-border areas had devastating impacts on the lives of our community members,” Ethiopia’s Deputy Peace Minister Zeynu Jamal said in his keynote address.
“Regrettably,” he said, “high number of people died, hundreds of thousands of populations became displaced, and their livelihoods were destroyed, development opportunities lost and poverty aggravated in the area.”
In July 2018, dozens were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the ethnic conflict between Somali and Oromo communities living across the border area between Ethiopia and Kenya.
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