Word: harar
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...trip last month to Ethiopia, to cover the fourth anniversary of the Marxist regime's military coup, French Photographer Bernard Couret was allowed to visit Harar province, the scene of heavy fighting in last year's Ogaden war against Somali invaders. Couret photographed military maneuvers in the area and came away with the first pictures that provide the West with documentary evidence of the substantial Soviet and Cuban presence in Ethiopia. Western intelligence sources estimate that there are perhaps 9,000 Cubans in Ogaden. Another 2,000 to 4,000 are assisting the Ethiopians in a bloody...
...Outside Harar, a major town in the Ogaden, Somali tanks and artillery fought for two months against Ethiopian defenders dug into the hillsides. Along the winding dirt road from Harar to the front, small huts of clay bricks and thatched grass roofs were burned by occupying Somali forces, then hit by rockets and bombs from Ethiopian warplanes. Now the rubble lies mixed with brass shell casings, shattered steel helmets and bodies left to rot when the war passed through...
Fedis, an agricultural center of 5,000, is deserted. The dirt streets of the village are strewn with torn clothing, bricks, pieces of tin roof and spent shells. When the rockets came, the people fled. A few hundred have turned up in Harar, a day's walk away, where they took shelter in warehouses, their bundles of belongings arranged in a circle around each family. The rest exist in the bush, watching the kites (scavenging hawks) circle their villages. Last week the Ethiopian air force dropped leaflets telling the villagers it was safe to return home. Most declined...
...wire boundaries of the tarmac, carrying jugs of water. The combatants themselves are hardly better off. There are indications on both sides that the greenest troops are pushed into the front lines. One captured Somali who said he was 13 years old was shown off by the Ethiopians in Harar. The youth claimed he had been forced into the army, given two months' training and sent to the front...
...latest round of heavy fighting, which began during the last week of January around Harar, the Ethiopians say they have lost 500 to 700 dead and 1,500 wounded and have killed some 2,000 Somali army regulars. The actual figures are almost certainly higher, but the Ethiopian claim to have taken only 17 prisoners is probably accurate: both sides expect their soldiers to die fighting, and each side claims the other has special squads to eliminate troops that surrender...