Monitoring Desk
ADDIS ABABA: At least 50 people have been killed in ethnic violence this month in the Oromia region of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) shared on Wednesday.
The human rights watchdog said that on February 2, gunmen descended on Ano city, housing over 10,000 internally displaced people (IDPs), and “killed house to house.”
“At least 50 people, including one regional official and his driver, as well as city police and militias officials, were killed by the armed group,” the human rights watchdog said.
Four children and women were among the dead, the watchdog added.
The gunmen entered an IDP camp and held male residents hostage who could not escape “with some of the dead bodies burned after their murders,” the human rights watchdog said.
OLA rebel group continues ethnic violence
EHRC said survivors of the violence informed them the fighters wore uniforms of the rebel group the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA).
While calm has returned mainly to the northern Tigray region after two years of brutal war, fighting has continued in Oromia, Ethiopia’s most populous and largest region, which is haunted by a long-running insurgency.
Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo, has long complained of marginalization.
However, the region is beset with other ethnic cracks, particularly between the Amhara and the Oromo, the country’s second-biggest ethnic grouping.
“In the attack, government offices, business shops, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia branch and other entities were extensively looted and destroyed,” it said, adding that many were injured in the attack.
Last month, a Chinese national was killed in Gebre Guracha, a town in the Oromia region and some 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Addis Ababa’s capital.
Gunmen also killed over 60 people in the region in Abora city last August, according to EHRC.
Officials have blamed the OLA for several massacres targeting Amharas, although the rebels have denied responsibility.
