Witnesses accuse Ethiopian rebels of killing hundreds

• Survivors in Ethiopia’s Oromia region say hundreds of Amhara rebels have been killed by pro-government forces.
• The Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) has been designated a terrorist organisation by the government.
• It denies responsibility for the killings and demands an impartial investigation.

NAIROBI: Hundreds of Amhara ethnic group members were killed by rebels in Ethiopian Oromia region over the weekend, survivors reported Monday, but the insurgents refuted the reports, blaming government forces.

On Saturday morning, fighting broke out in Oromia’s Gimbi area between pro-government forces and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), a rebel group designated by the Ethiopian government as a terrorist organisation.

Read more: Ethiopian rights body says security forces killed civilians after rebel attack

Witnesses who spoke to AFP on the condition of anonymity out of concern for their safety stated that the onslaught lasted many hours and that unidentified remains were still lying in the streets.

“I lost my 16-year-old daughter in the attack, shot by a bullet from the (OLA) gunmen,” an Amhara father stated, adding that the rebels had barricaded the main roadway.

Another man told AFP that he had “personally helped bury 61 bodies on Sunday, with the total number of buried bodies on Sunday being 351 in total.”

“The intention of all these attacks is to force us to leave,” he claimed, adding that “our houses and properties have been destroyed.”

“I want to leave this area, go to my ancestral region… that at least would allow me to live in peace,” he stated.

In a statement, the regional authorities of Oromia said that the OLA had “committed a brutal attack on innocents” and threatened to take serious action against the militants.

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On Twitter, he said, “The Abiy regime is once again blaming the OLA for atrocities done by its own fighters as they were retreating.”