United States Says It Is “Deeply Concerned” About Targeted Killings of Civilians in Arsi and Calls on Ethiopia’s Government to Investigate

Zegabi.com
News and Articles

The United States said on Saturday that it is “deeply concerned about recent reports of targeted killings of civilians in Arsi zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia,” and called on the Ethiopian Government to investigate the killings and bring those responsible to justice, a week after attacks that the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church says killed 60 of its faithful.

“The United States condemns religious, ethnic, or political motivated violence. Such horrific attacks against any group must stop,” the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs wrote on X. The bureau added that “as we seek to understand this tragedy, the United States urges against characterizations that could deepen division,” and it did not say whom it held responsible. Less than an hour later the US Embassy in Addis Ababa posted the same words as a statement from Ambassador Ervin J. Massinga, who began, “I too am deeply concerned,” and repeated the call on the government of Ethiopia “to investigate and to bring the perpetrators to justice.” The ambassador’s version did not include the bureau’s line about characterizations that could deepen division.

The British ambassador, Darren Welch, had written on X on Friday that he was “deeply shocked to hear of the killing in Arsi: one of the first places I visited here in Ethiopia.” He offered his condolences to the families of the dead and wrote, “We continue to support all efforts to investigate & establish who was responsible.”

BBC Amharic and BBC Tigrinya reported the US call on Sunday and noted that the federal government in Addis Ababa has still said nothing publicly about the killings. The only official account so far has come from the Oromia region, whose communication bureau head, Hailu Adugna, blamed the attacks last week on the alliance of armed groups that officials call “Tsimdo.” He said the group’s attempt “to create ethnic and religious conflict to divert attention from the heavy losses it suffered in northern Ethiopia has failed,” and that the region would press on with the measures it had begun taking against those responsible, BBC Amharic reported. BBC Tigrinya said the alliance, which calls itself the Alliance for Survival and whose seven members include the Amhara Fano National Movement, the Oromo Liberation Army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, had not responded to the accusation.

The Holy Synod said last Monday that 14 people were killed in Merti woreda on Oct. 20 and 46 in Shirka woreda on Oct. 24, that the homes of 20 believers were burned and that more than 20 people were in hospital with serious wounds, as Zegabi reported. Residents have since told the BBC, Wazema Radio and DW Amharic that security forces in Shirka detained people who carried the wounded and buried the dead, as Zegabi reported. The area, which falls under the Southeast zone in Oromia’s new administrative map, has seen repeated attacks on residents, especially Orthodox Christians, for years by forces whose identity and aims have never been officially established, BBC Amharic said. On Oct. 29 the World Council of Churches called for “prompt, impartial and transparent investigations” and said reports indicated that many of those killed were Amhara Orthodox Christians, while Oromo Orthodox Christians had also suffered.

On X, many Ethiopians welcomed the US statement but questioned whether it went far enough. Berhanemeskel Nega (@berhanenega), whose bio says he has spent more than 35 years in multilateral diplomacy and UN peace and humanitarian operations, replied to the bureau that “this was not an isolated tragedy, and there is little left to ‘seek to understand.’” He wrote that “naming this does not deepen division; silence and euphemism do,” and that “asking a government whose own forces have been implicated to investigate itself is not accountability,” and he urged Washington to press for an independent investigation and to consider sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act. He cited a count by the Ethiopian Human Rights Council of at least 432 civilians killed in targeted attacks in East Arsi since 2021/22, a figure Zegabi has asked the council to confirm. A user posting as Elias (@Eliasyemariam) thanked the State Department but wrote that an inquiry “led solely by the Ethiopian government is unlikely to command full confidence or break the cycle of impunity,” and asked the United States to back “an independent, international investigative body through the United Nations Security Council.” Abdullahi Derow (@AbdullahiDerow), whose bio describes him as a human rights activist and former youth leader of Kenya’s Jubilee Party, asked the bureau, “Where is the equivalent condemnation of the ongoing attacks on Somali civilians in Moyale?” and accused Oromia regional forces of attacking Somali residents there, a claim Zegabi could not verify. Wazema Radio (@Wazemaradio) led its Saturday Amharic news roundup with the US call. None of these posts establishes who carried out the Arsi killings.

Sources