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Authorities have cut off Internet access in eastern Ethiopia amid an outbreak of violence in the region, two local residents said on Wednesday.
The residents, one speaking from Oromia region and the other from the city of Harar, said the connection had been down for three days.
Ethiopian government spokesman Ahmed Shide did not immediately respond to a phone call and a text message seeking comment on the shutdown, which was reported on Tuesday by digital rights group Access Now.
Violence broke out on Saturday in Jijiga, the capital of Ethiopia's Somali region, with mobs looting properties owned by ethnic minorities. Security officials shot dead four people, a witness told Reuters.
Ethiopian soldiers traded fire with members of local government security forces on Saturday in the country's eastern Somali region after central authorities sought to arrest regional officials, witnesses said.Residents told Reuters soldiers were deployed in the province's capital Jijiga on Friday evening, bringing them into conflict with the region's paramilitary forces."We can still hear shots being fired. They have been taking place since the morning," one resident said.Eritrean plane lands in Ethiopia after 25-year hiatusAnother resident told Reuters an Ethiopian Orthodox church had been burned down by a mob, while shops, hotels and banks remained closed.A third witness said government soldiers had been deployed in the region's administration offices with the intention of arresting officials.It was not immediately clear why the government in Addis Ababa sought to apprehend them. Officials in the capital and Jijiga were not immediately available for comment.Ethiopia's PM Abiy sets up team to advise on privatisationEthiopia's Somali region has been plagued by violence for the last two decades. The government has fought the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) since 1984 after the group launched its bid for secession of the region, also known as Ogaden.Since 2017, clashes along the province's border with the Oromiya region have displaced tens of thousands of people.The region's officials have recently been accused by the government in Addis Ababa of perpetrating rights abuses. Last month, Ethiopia fired senior prison officials there after details emerged of torture and other abuses in one notorious prison.
Ethiopian army clashes with local government paramilitaries
The government said unrest had been stoked by regional officials.
The residents in Oromia and Harar said they were concerned the violence could spread from the Somali region into other parts of eastern Ethiopia, in part because tit-for-tat ethnic reprisals were one facet of the unrest that roiled the country for three years until the resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in February.
Since replacing Desalegn in April, Abiy Ahmed has turned politics and the economy on its head in the country of 100 million people but continuing ethnic violence poses a challenge to his reforms.