{"id":447548,"date":"2023-05-24T08:45:33","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T12:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=447548"},"modified":"2023-05-24T08:45:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T12:45:33","slug":"rare-armed-attack-in-famed-ethiopia-athletics-town-leaves-4-dead-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/447548","title":{"rendered":"Rare armed attack in famed Ethiopia athletics town leaves 4 dead: report\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A rare armed attack in Bekoji town located in the Arsi zone of Ethiopia\u2019s Oromia region has left four people dead, the thrice weekly Addis Ababa based newspaper Ethiopian Reporter disclosed on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bekoji, a normally peaceful sleepy town located 221 kilometers southeast of Ethiopia\u2019s capital, Addis Ababa is hometown of at least eight Olympic medalists including Derartu Tulu, Ethiopian multiple Olympics medalist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Derartu who retired from competitive sports in the early 2010s currently acts as President of Ethiopian Athletics Federation (EAF).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Citing anonymous eyewitnesses, Ethiopian Reporter disclosed the armed attack which went on for several hours last Friday evening was aimed at freeing prisoners from a local prison.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The eyewitnesses reportedly told Ethiopian Reporter journalist that four people including two local security forces were killed in the attack which also managed to free scores of prisoners.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, though the eyewitnesses cited by Ethiopian Reporter report said it was likely carried out by Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) militants.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The OLA which is currently listed as a terrorist group by the Ethiopian government is frequently accused of carrying out attacks on government as well as civilian targets. OLA denies the charge of deliberately attacking civilian targets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last month, the Ethiopian government sat for peace talks for the first time with OLA in the east African nation of Tanzania.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The \u201cfirst round\u201d of talks ended in disagreement, though both sides have recently said they\u2019re committed to further peace talks in the future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, since that period there seems to be an intensification of fighting between OLA militants and government security forces as well as targeted attacks by suspected OLA militants.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A rare armed attack in Bekoji town located in the Arsi zone of Ethiopia\u2019s Oromia region has left four people dead, the thrice weekly Addis Ababa based newspaper Ethiopian Reporter disclosed on Wednesday.\u00a0 Bekoji, a normally peaceful sleepy town located 221 kilometers southeast of Ethiopia\u2019s capital, Addis Ababa is hometown of at least eight Olympic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":447549,"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":[5845],"class_list":["post-447548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news","tag-ethiopia-agoa-pm-abiyu-s"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/00570737_cdbada9740086fa86c0cc49cf99e0372_arc614x376_w1200.jpg?fit=736%2C451&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1Sqw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447548","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\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447550,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447548\/revisions\/447550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}