Ethiopian security forces were Thursday searching for gunmen who killed five European tourists and kidnapped at least two others and two guides in an attack it blamed on arch-rival Eritrea.

"We are working on how to respond to the attack... there are security operators there," said foreign ministry spokesman Dina Mufti.

Ethiopian security forces were Thursday searching for gunmen who killed five European tourists and kidnapped at least two others and two guides in an attack it blamed on arch-rival Eritrea.

"We are working on how to respond to the attack... there are security operators there," said foreign ministry spokesman Dina Mufti.

Ethiopia said Wednesday that five tourists killed in an attack blamed on terrorists in the northeast were all European, and that two other foreigners in the group had been kidnapped.

The government confirmed the attack, first reported by state television late on Tuesday, and blamed terrorists backed by its arch-foe neighbor Eritrea.

The pilot of an Ethiopian plane that crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from Beirut in stormy weather two years ago made 15 mistakes in three minutes, An Nahar daily reported Saturday.

The newspaper quoted the official investigation report into the accident as saying that the pilot “moved from one mistake to another until the plane’s equipment were incapable of responding to his instructions.”

An Ethiopian court on Tuesday sentenced two Swedish journalists to 11 years in jail for supporting terrorism and entering the country illegally, after a trial criticized by rights groups.

"The sentence should be punishment of 11 years imprisonment," Judge Shemsu Sirgaga told the court in the Amharic language through a translator.

Several hundred Ethiopian troops crossed on Saturday into southern and central Somalia, local elders said, but Addis Ababa dismissed the reports as "absolutely not true."

"There are several hundred Ethiopian troops here in lorries and some armored vehicles too," said elder Abdi Ibrahim Warsame, speaking by telephone from Gurel town, in Somalia's central Galgudud region.

Sudan has lodged a fresh complaint with the U.N. Security Council detailing South Sudan's alleged support for rebels in its war-torn border states, just four months after partition, state media reported Saturday.

Sudan's U.N. ambassador, Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, provided "detailed, confirmed information explaining the support of the government of the south for the rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile," the SUNA news agency reported.

Mohamed Ibrahim fled to Ethiopia to seek relief from a harsh drought devastating his country Somalia, but misery stalked him in refuge where malnutrition recently killed his one-year-old son.

The desperate exodus by tens of thousands of Somalis to find assistance across borders has taken them to refugee settlements, where spartan living conditions, congestion and threat of disease are making survival difficult.

The World Bank on Monday pledged more than $500 million (348 million euros) to aid the drought-stricken Horn of Africa region, as United Nations aid chiefs met in Rome to discuss ramping up relief efforts.

The bulk of the money will go towards long-term projects to aid livestock farmers while $12 million will be for immediate assistance to those worst hit by the crisis and facing starvation, the World Bank said in a statement.

Twelve million people in the drought-hit Horn of Africa region need emergency aid, the U.N. food agency said on Wednesday, appealing for $120 million to help desperate farmers.

"Around 12 million people in the Horn of Africa are currently in need of emergency assistance," the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement, adding that hundreds of people are dying every day in the crisis.