Ambush and reprisals in Ethiopia kill 64 - rights body
14/03/2022 07:18
NAIROBI, March 14 (Reuters) - At least 53 people died in
western Ethiopia after an unidentified armed group attacked a
civilian convoy and its military escort in a region plagued by
ethnic violence, a rights body appointed by the government said
on Sunday.
The previously unreported attack occurred on March 2 in
Metekel, in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, the Ethiopian Human
Rights Commission said.
Twenty soldiers and three civilians were killed in the
ambush, while 30 attackers died during the day-long gun battle
that followed.
Eleven more people were killed the following day - including
one who was burned alive - as security forces rounded up
suspects and carried out summary killings, according to the
rights group.
The commission investigated the incident after a video
posted on social media on Friday showed armed men, some in
military uniforms, using a stick to poke a man back onto a
burning pile of bodies after he tried to escape. The government
said on Saturday it would act against the
perpetrators. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N2VF057
According to the commission, the government soldiers stopped
a bus, pulled out eight ethnic Tigrayan civilians who had just
been released from prison and accused them of orchestrating the
attack.
Security officers detained and beat the men, then they shot
them, along with two men from the local Gumuz ethnic group, and
burned their bodies, the commission said. Security officers told
the commission that they found cash and a satellite phone with
the Tigrayan suspects.
Security forces discovered another Tigrayan man hiding in a
car, tied him up and threw him onto the pyre, the commission
said, noting the presence of Ethiopian soldiers and uniformed
forces from the Amhara region and Southern Nations Nationalities
and Peoples' Region.
The rights body did not say which security force killed the
civilians.
Spokesmen for the two regions were not available for
comment. A military spokesman and government spokesman did not
immediately respond to requests for comment.
The violence in the Benishangul-Gumuz, home to several
ethnic groups, is separate from the war in Tigray, a northern
region that has been fighting central government rule for more
than 16 months.
The United Nations has said at least 15,000 Tigrayan
civilians were arrested or detained in connection with a state
of emergency declared in November and lifted last month.
urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2UQ0G3
(Reporting by George Obulutsa;
Editing by Katharine Houreld & Simon Cameron-Moore)
((george.obulutsa@thomsonreuters.com; Tel: +254 20 499 1234;
Reuters Messaging:
george.obulutsa.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))