Dozens killed in ethnic attack

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Survivors of a massacre by rebels in western Ethiopia on Sunday counted 54 bodies in a schoolyard, the latest attack in which members of ethnic minorities have been deliberately targeted, Amnesty International said Monday.

Human rights groups are asking why federal soldiers left the area just hours before attackers moved in and targeted ethnic Amharas.

Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, denounced the killing of people based on identity, adding that security forces had been deployed to the area and “started taking measures.”

Ethnic violence in Ethiopia is posing the greatest challenge yet to the prime minister, who was last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner for his sweeping political reforms.

Ethiopia’s government blamed a rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Army, for the attacks in the far western part of Oromia, in an area bordering South Sudan.

Survivors of the attack in Guliso District of West Wellega Zone told Amnesty International that federal troops had withdrawn unexpectedly and the rebels arrived hours later, identifying themselves as the OLA and announcing that they now controlled the area.

“Militants gathered people who did not manage to flee, mainly women, children and the elderly, and killed them,” the Amnesty statement said. Survivors hid in a forest nearby. One told the human rights group he found the bodies of his brother, sisterinlaw and three children in the schoolyard with bullet wounds.

Amharas are the second most populous ethnic group in Ethiopia after Oromos. They also have been targeted by gunmen in the Western Benishangul Gumuz and Southern regions in recent weeks, leaving several dozen dead.