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AP
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Five foreign tourists were killed by unknown armed rebels in Ethiopia's restive Afar region in the country's north, Ethiopian state television reported on Tuesday.

The Ethiopian Television, or ETV, cited the Ethiopian Ministry of Defense reporting a group of eight unidentified foreign nationals were attacked near the Eritrean border on Monday.

ETV said two tourists were injured severely and have been brought to a health clinic by defense forces. They are in critical condition, the state television said. Another tourist survived the attack unharmed.

ETV suggested that the attackers were rebels with ties to Ethiopia's archrival Eritrea, which hosts the exiled Oromo Liberation Front, a rebel group listed as a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian government.

Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged tourists had been attacked in the Afar region but said it didn't have any further details about the attack or the victims' nationalities.

In Berlin, a spokesman at the German Foreign Ministry, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said it has received "reports of an attack on a tour group with Germans in Ethiopia" and that the ministry is trying to determine what had happened.

In Vienna, Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Peter Launsky-Tiefenthal said as many as 22 tourists of several European nationalities may have been attacked, including two Austrians.