SCORES KILLED IN ETHIOPIA UNREST
Ethiopian security forces killed more than 75 people and injured nearly 200 during deadly ethnic unrest in June and July following the killing of a popular singer, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said Friday.
The commission’s report said 123 people in all were killed and at least 500 injured amid one of the country’s worst outbreaks of ethnic violence in years, a “widespread and systematic attack” against civilians that points to crimes against humanity. Some victims were beheaded, tortured or dragged in the streets by attackers.
Ethnic violence is a major challenge for Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister
Abiy Ahmed, who has urged national unity among more than 80 ethnic groups in Africa’s second-most-populous country.
The unrest in June and July followed the killing of singer Hachalu Hundessa, who had been a prominent voice in the anti-government protests that led to Abiy taking office in 2018 and announcing sweeping political reforms. Those reforms, however, opened the way for longheld ethnic and other grievances to flare.
The commission found that amid the street protests following Hachalu’s death, “civilians were attacked inside their homes by individual and grouped perpetrators and were beaten and killed in streets in a gruesome and cruel manner with sticks, knives, axes, sharp iron bars, stones and electric cables.”
More than 6,000 people were displaced and at least 900 properties looted, burned or vandalized, the report said. The attacks often targeted ethnic Amhara or Orthodox Christians.