Austin American-Statesman

GODE, Ethiopia — The town of Gode sits on an arid plain of brittle yellow scrub brush in Ethiopia's eastern Somali region. It looks like a place a John Wayne character might live and die.

And to be sure, people are dying here as violence from warring factions in the neighboring nation of Somalia spills over into Ethiopia.

"The worst are bullet injuries to the abdomen," said Solomon Muluneh, a 31-year-old Ethiopian general practitioner, one of only two doctors within 100 miles. "When you open the abdomen, you pray because it is a very difficult area."