On 3 May 2019 a Benishangul-Gumuz communications official told AFP that dozens of civilians had been shot dead in Ethiopia’s Amhara region in attacks described as retaliation for earlier Gumuz–Amhara violence, with more than 80 injured and about 90 sheltering in a school.
Search and rescue was still underway. Gunmen had not been publicly identified, but officials linked the assault to revenge for weekend killings that themselves began as a laborer dispute and burned homes.
Tit-for-tat massacres along the Amhara–Benishangul line became a pattern Abiy Ahmed’s federal command posts never truly ended. Body counts moved faster than honest federal briefings.
Kept as conflict archive, the ‘dozens killed’ wire is the escalation step after the 17-dead report. Readers tracing Metekel’s later horrors need these 2019 timestamps.
Sources: The Times of Israel / AFP