Ethiopia arrests two over murder of Austrian rafter

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian police have arrested two men suspected of involvement in the murder of an Austrian rafter shot dead during an apparent robbery of his travel group, an official from the force said on Thursday.

The 27-year-old man was killed as he camped on the banks of the Blue Nile river on Sunday in a remote area near Bahir Dar, about 570 km (350 miles) north of the capital Addis Ababa.

Three other Austrians on the scene were not injured.

"We have caught two suspects who were found in possession of clothing, money and other items that belonged to the victims," said Solomon Mohammed, spokesperson of the regional police commission in Ethiopia's northern Amhara region.

Solomon said police were also looking into whether there was a political motive to the killing, but declined to go into details. Rebel groups are active in some of Ethiopia's remote regions, but there has been no reports of such activity recently in Amhara.

The incident occurred almost exactly a year after five Europeans, including an Austrian, were killed when their travel group was attacked in the northeastern Afar region bordering Eritrea.

(Reporting by Aaron Maasho and Tesfa Alem Tekle; Editing by George Obulutsa and Andrew Heavens)