Ethiopian Minister of Federal Affairs Abaye Tsehaye said on Friday that six soldiers will be charged with reprisal attacks, in which hundreds of people were killed in the country's southwestern Gambella state.

"Sufficient evidence has been gathered to lodge charges against six members of the Ethiopian Defense Forces (EDF) as suspects in the violence that took place in Gambella," Abaye told a parliamentary hearing.

The six soldiers are currently in prison, he added.

However, he did not give details of the exact charges the soldiers would face.

On December 13, 2003, over 60 people from the Anuak ethnic group were killed in Gambella, 700 km west of the capital Addis Ababa. The killings resulted from an Anuak rebel ambush.

In a reprisal attack a month later, the Anuak killed about 200 miners from the Nuer tribe in Dima district in Gambella state.