Over 5300 killings of Oromo civilians have now been recorded by OSG since Abiy Ahmed began his campaign at the end of 2018 to wipe out the Qeerroo movement and then the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) and its support base.
The neglect of news from Oromia Region and the near impossibility of obtaining information from the areas where most of the killings have occurred is borne out by the scanty coverage of Oromia in the report from the UN International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (pp.6-11).
The majority of killings, over 3200, occurred during 2022 and 2023. Over 1300 were in the four Wallega zones in western Oromia and more than 1300 in the central zones of Showa.
Fano and other forces are responsible for most of the 700 killed in Oromia Special Zone, in the last three years, and nearly all of the 900 killed in Horo Guduru and East Wallega in the last two years, in acts of ethnic cleansing.
Militia forces have also played a role in the killings and ethnic cleansing in East Showa but most of the lethal violence in North and West Showa, which has claimed over 1300 Oromo civilian lives in the last two years, and the majority of the 1000 or more killings in Qellem and West Wallega since early 2020 have been perpetrated by government forces; operating out of Command Posts in the case of Qellem and West Wallega zones.
ENDF, and recently Fano, have particularly targeted young Oromo men, especially those at school or university, because of their potentially becoming members or supporters of OLA.
Killings in North and West Showa and in the four Wallega zones are also described in this report.
The utter desolation of areas under Command Post rule is evidenced by the catastrophic effect of this year’s malaria epidemic , where a combination of violence, severe malnutrition, economic collapse and record numbers of IDPs have left the population so vulnerable that thousands have died, without government help or acknowledgement.
The Ministry of Health has misled the international community and prevented the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs from describing the extent of the disaster.
While Oromo and other peoples need peace, government and Fano forces are fomenting inter-ethnic violence, which has alerted UN experts to the heightened risk of genocide .
#stopviolence #stopthekilling #stoptheharrasement #stopkillinginnocentcivillians #justice #FreeAlloromoPoliticalPrisoners
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