Word: ethiopian
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Four miles to the east of Nacfa, a once prosperous farm town that is now a bombed-out ruin, rebel fighters carrying Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles stand watch in trenches along a ridge. Across a narrow valley, in places just 60 yards away, Ethiopian troops are dug in. Some of their comrades, identifiable by their bright green uniforms, lie dead in no-man's-land. An exchange of automatic-weapons fire echoes through the valley. Moments later, two Soviet-built Ethiopian MiGs roar overhead in search of the rebels' camouflaged artillery and tank emplacements. Sipping...
Last month the army launched the second phase of a fall offensive aimed at breaking through the E.P.L.F.'s 250-mile-long defensive line and capturing Nacfa. Ethiopian infantry, backed by Soviet-made T-54 and T-55 tanks, tried to blast its way onto the heights commanded by the rebels. One night Ethiopian fighter-bombers pounded rebel positions near Nacfa for five hours with bombs, rockets and napalm. Ethiopian infantrymen, backed by more than a dozen tanks, managed to overrun a rebel position. Before the Ethiopians could move on Nacfa, though, rebel reinforcements moved in from the flanks...
That was only one of a dozen failed Ethiopian assaults during November. "It's a pity to see the way they waste men," observes a rebel fighter. Ethiopian casualties in the battle numbered 200 killed or wounded and four captured. The rebels refuse to discuss their losses. Says Afewerki: "When you attack, you lose men, and when you defend, you also lose men." The E.P.L.F. leadership is confident, as are Western intelligence analysts, that the sputtering government drive, like the seven other major offensives launched by Mengistu's army since 1977, will fail to crack rebel lines around Nacfa...
...refugee camps are more difficult to hide and defend. This fall the Ethiopians struck at nine camps, killing 66 civilians. At Solomuna camp, home to 7,000 Eritreans, including 500 children in an orphanage, Ethiopian MiGs dropped 20 bombs in one day last September. Nine people were killed, including six children, and 23 were wounded. Solomuna's residents now rise before dawn and climb into narrow ravines, where they spend the day huddled under rock overhangs. The sound of a distant MiG one morning instantly silenced several hundred chattering children, as all peered skyward. Ghiday Haile, 33, sat under...
...even the night can be perilous. Late one evening an Ethiopian plane, probably a Soviet-made An-12, unleashed a payload of bombs and flares near the camp, lighting up the sky for miles around. The brilliant display, which the Eritreans call the "Christmas tree," fell harmlessly into the mountains. But ERA workers report that the night raids frighten refugees for miles around. "What the Ethiopians want," says one, "is to scare our people into leaving these camps and force them to cross into Sudan or into government- controlled camps...