(Pictures obtained from social media)
Hundreds of festival goers have reportedly been killed on
Sunday in the town of Bishoftu, the site of the annual Ireecha celebrations, an
important festival by the people of Oromo in welcoming spring as well as
thanksgiving.
An eyewitness who spoke to ESAT on the phone said a stampede ensued when
soldiers fired tear gas at festival goers, who were also using the occasion to
express grievances against the government and the killing of hundreds of their
compatriots in the nearly one year of protests by the people of Oromo against a
tyrannical regime. The witness said 25 bodies were found in a ravine in one
place alone.
Other reports say soldiers fired live bullets from
helicopters as well as from the ground. With the Internet and telephone lines
cut in and around Bishoftu a.k.a. Debre Zeit since the eve of the festival, it
is hard to know the exact number of the fatalities and injuries. But social
media postings by Oromo activists show gruesome pictures and video of dead
bodies.
The witness who spoke to ESAT said the people were protesting
peacefully. The people began booing at government officials as they tried to
make a speech, at which point the soldiers started shooting tear gas causing
the deadly stampede, he said.
Gunfire could be heard in Bishoftu all day, 25 miles from the
capital Addis Ababa, as helicopters were hovering over the town since the eve
of the festival on Saturday. Some estimates put the number of festival goers at
3 million.
Meanwhile, residents of Ambo, west of Addis Ababa and Aweday,
a commercial town in eastern Ethiopia have held demonstrations on Sunday in
protest against the killing of their compatriots in Bishoftu. Cars were burnt
and government buildings attacked in Ambo.
Sunday’s killings perhaps mark the deadliest since the
protest by the people of Oromo began in November 2016 against economic and
political marginalization by a minority government.
Rights groups report that over one thousand protesters were
killed and tens of thousands remain in detention.
ESAT News
No comments:
Post a Comment