Rebels on Tuesday killed at least 60 civilians and set fire to homes in a “horrendous” ethnic based attack in Dibate district of Metekel Zone in Ethiopia\u2019s Benishangul-Gumuz Region, survivors have said. <\/p>\n
Survivors of the attack told local media that members of the rebels-Benishangul Gumuz People\u2019s Democratic Unity Front (BGPLF) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) committed the attacks in joint force against ethnic Amhara and Agew people.<\/p>\n
According to the survivors, the attackers rounded Balite locality in Dibate district around 5:00 AM and killed at least 63 innocent people, largely women and children. <\/p>\n
Ethnic violence has increased since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in April 2018, loosening controls of the unfolding attacks especially in different districts of Benishangul-Gumuz Region.<\/p>\n
One of the survivors told the VOA Amharic service on condition of anonymity that he counted 63 bodies after the attack in which at least 22 other civilians were wounded.<\/p>\n
Asked how he established who is behind the killing, one of the survivors said members of the OLF Shene and BGPLF were captured after Ethiopian Defense Forces wounded them.<\/p>\n
The government claimed that the security situation in the region was improving after the deployment of a federal force in the region following the massacre of more than 200 civilians in the same zone. <\/p>\n
Between September 2020 and now, at least 400 innocent civilians have been killed. PM Abiy Ahmed\u2019s government has been badly criticized for failing to protect the lives of citizens. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rebels on Tuesday killed at least 60 civilians and set fire to homes in a “horrendous” ethnic based attack in Dibate district of Metekel Zone in Ethiopia\u2019s Benishangul-Gumuz Region, survivors have said. Survivors of the attack told local media that members of the rebels-Benishangul Gumuz People\u2019s Democratic Unity Front (BGPLF) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":344654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Benishangul-Gumuz-Region.png?fit=800%2C649&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1rEV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344653"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344730,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344653\/revisions\/344730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}