Ethiopian Human Rights Commission Says OLA Fighters Killed 41 in Shirka’s Birbo Chole and Informal Armed Men Killed Seven More

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The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission says fighters of the armed group that calls itself the Oromo Liberation Army killed 41 people when they stormed Birbo Chole kebele in Oromia’s Shirka district on Oct. 24, and that informal armed men in the same area killed seven more civilians on the same day.

In a statement released on Tuesday evening, the commission said its investigators went to the area, in the former Arsi zone that now falls under the new Southeast Oromia zone, and gathered information from victims, their families, eyewitnesses, community representatives, religious leaders, wounded people receiving treatment and government officials, and that it also used field observation and digital investigation. It said the armed group, which it said is commonly called “OLF Shene,” entered the kebele from four directions and attacked between 6:30 and 8:30 in the morning, local time, killing 23 kebele level security members, five militia members and 13 civilians and wounding 20 people. The commission said 21 homes were burned, 247 families were driven from the area and an unknown number of cattle and pack animals were looted.

The commission also said its investigation found that people in the kebele go about widely armed in an informal way, outside any government security structure. It did not say who the seven civilians killed by the informal armed men were, or who those men were, and the statement does not give the religion of any of the dead. Two residents had told BBC Amharic last month that seven Muslims were killed on the same day, after the attack in which more than 40 people died, while residents said the people killed in the main attack were Christians, BBC Amharic recalled on Wednesday.

The commission’s figures come close to the counts people on the ground gave in the days after the attack. Residents who attended the mass funeral told Addis Standard on Oct. 26 that at least 48 people had been killed and more than 31 wounded in Chole and Birbo, and Addis Standard said on Wednesday that the commission’s findings confirmed that toll. BBC Amharic and Sheger FM also reported the commission’s total as 48. Eyewitnesses, victims’ families and a local church official had told BBC that 46 people were killed that day, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church said 46 of its faithful died in Shirka and 14 in neighboring Merti district, 60 in a single week. The witnesses Addis Standard spoke to described door to door killings, looting and the use of heavy weapons, and said the dead included women, elderly people and at least six children under the age of 15. The commission’s breakdown differs from those accounts in one respect, since it says 23 of the dead were kebele level security members and five were militia members, while residents and the church spoke of civilians killed in their homes.

The Oromia regional government has also blamed the OLA, which it calls “Shene.” Hailu Adugna, head of the regional communication bureau, said on Monday that Fano members also operate in the area and that 73 people detained in connection with the attack were members of “Fano and Shene,” BBC Amharic reported. The regional government said security had been restored in six kebeles and that displaced residents were being helped to go home, according to Addis Standard. Zegabi could not independently check those claims. The commission’s statement does not mention Fano, and residents told BBC and Wazema last week that security forces had detained people who rescued and buried the dead after the attack, accusing them of passing information to armed groups.

The OLA has not publicly responded to the EHRC’s findings, and it had not commented on the accusation, BBC Amharic said. The alliance it belongs to, the Ethiopian People’s Forces Alliance for Survival, said in an Oct. 27 statement that the attacks in the former Arsi zone are carried out “with the direct support and ownership of the regime,” accusing Abiy Ahmed’s government of being behind them, BBC Amharic reported.

The commission’s chief commissioner, Birhanu Adelo, called the killings, injuries, destruction of property and displacement “extremely worrying” and said the government must give adequate and effective protection to the area and to every place facing similar threats, review and correct the setup of local security forces, strengthen early warning and respond quickly to threats. He said the government must also carry out “a swift, independent and effective investigation” to establish accountability, support the families of the dead and the wounded, help displaced people return home and compensate and rehabilitate victims. The commission said it had repeatedly urged the Ethiopian federal government to act on repeated attacks in Aseko, Anqolo Wabe, Guna and Merti districts of the former Arsi zone, cited Article 13(1) of the constitution, which places the duty to protect life, property and security on every federal and regional body, and said the government must keep watch over armed groups outside its formal security structure. It said it is finishing a wider investigation into attacks in several districts of Southeast Oromia and will publish its findings. The findings come days after the United States said it was “deeply concerned” about targeted killings of civilians in Arsi and called on Ethiopia’s government to investigate.

Reaction on X was thin by Wednesday morning, and most posts repeated the commission’s numbers. The account Patriotic Ethiopian (@Tikur80s), whose bio says “I am Ethiopian first. Hate tribalism!”, wrote that the commission “implicated the #OLA Shene for the recent massacre of #Orthodox #Christians in its investigation” and added, “Hope the government of #Ethiopia showed the faces of perpetrators on TV … so that the people see justice is served.” Molla Dagnew (@Dagnew1Molla) wrote in Amharic, “Thirty attacks in one year! Arsi has become a place where terrorists carry out repeated attacks, no less than Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan or Somalia!” The count of 30 attacks is his. Elias (@Eliasyemariam) wrote in English that “dismissing these atrocities as a ‘staged attack to distract from the national election’ cannot erase the evidence or silence grieving families,” and asked, “Where is the protection? Where are the independent investigations? Where is justice?” Zegabi found no posts in Tigrigna, Arabic or Afaan Oromo about the commission’s findings.

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