Residents Tell BBC That Oromia Regional Forces Killed Up to 40 Civilians in Wollega’s Tulu Gena

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Residents of Tulu Gena, a town in the Abe Dongoro district of western Oromia, have told BBC Amharic that armed men they describe as Oromia regional government forces killed as many as 40 civilians there in two days of attacks on Oct. 25 and 26, among them people who had already fled earlier violence in the area.

The BBC said it spoke on different days to six residents of the town, which was part of the former Horo Guduru Wollega zone and now falls under the new West Oromia zone, and that they gave different death tolls. Witnesses said “at least 25 people” were buried in a single day, people interviewed last week put the number as high as 28, and residents and survivors who spoke to the BBC on Monday said the number of civilians killed had reached 40 as the bodies of people taken away by the gunmen kept being found. The residents, who asked not to be named for their safety, said the attackers were the regional force known as “Gada Commando,” and that they hit Tulu Gena while passing through the town on the way from Gida Ayana to places where they believed Fano forces were, and on the way back, saying they would carry out “search and operations” against Fano. The BBC said it had no information from an independent party about the attack and could not independently verify the existence or movements of the “Gada Commando,” and that its efforts to get a response from the Oromia region had failed.

One resident said the shooting began on Sunday and went on through Monday, that “many innocent people were killed” and many houses burned, and that when people began searching for bodies on Tuesday they found 17. “Nine of them we found in one place. They are civilians. One of them was even a trader I knew,” he told the BBC. He said the nine were buried together at the town’s Kidane Mihret church and six others at a mosque, and that two more bodies found the next day brought the number buried at the church to 11. Another resident said that by Thursday “the bodies of 25 people” had been found. “We fled and came here. We were in Andode. The killing happened where we fled to,” he said, and he said the gunmen, on their way to fight Fano “and on their way back, kill whatever they find on their path, people and animals alike.” A third witness told the BBC on Monday, “We buried six Muslims in one day. In all, it was said that 25 people were killed. Later when I checked, with those killed in different places, it has reached about 40.”

The mother of one of the dead said her son, who lived by farming and trade, was taken by the gunmen near the family’s home on Sunday and was later found dead. The family had fled to Tulu Gena after an attack in Gida Ayana in August and were renting a house there, she said, after their homes were burned, their cattle looted and about 600 quintals of her son’s maize burned along with his stores at Andode Dicho. Asked whether her son had any links to the armed groups fighting in the area, she said, “He knew nothing but the scale and the plough. They took him on the road in Tulu Gena, where we had fled.” Residents said most of the dead were young men and that two people with mental illness were among them, that the remains of some victims found days later had been partly eaten by wild animals, and that at least six houses were burned and livestock looted and killed. They said the attackers targeted “people of Amhara ethnicity” on suspicion of supporting Fano, and that members of the Ethiopian National Defense Force stationed in the town and the town administration “did what they could” to stop the attack, without which, they said, the toll would have been worse.

The mayor of Tulu Gena, Gebeyehu Dereje, declined to comment when the BBC called him, and the head of the regional government’s communication office did not immediately respond to calls and written questions. The Oromia regional government has denied past accusations that its forces attack civilians and does not accept that a force called “Gada Commando” exists. General Hailu Gonfa, the regional president’s adviser on peace and security, recently told the BBC, “We have no organization called Gada Commando,” and said regional forces deployed in Wollega protect civilians and do not attack them, while taking action against armed groups operating in the name of Fano and the Oromo Liberation Army that threaten civilians.

Residents said that on Monday regional forces they again called “Gada Commando” passed through the town and that people were afraid all over again. “We are facing something terrible. Now both the day and life itself have turned dark for us. We keep saying they will kill us today or tomorrow. People don’t even know where to go,” one of them told the BBC. “Even today, when they were said to have come, it was the army that calmed the area a little. They passed on toward the forest, and people are anxious that they may finish us off when they come back.” Residents said most of those targeted were trying to flee to the Amhara region and to Addis Ababa.

Abe Dongoro and neighboring Gida Ayana, on the border between the Horo Guduru and East Wollega areas, have seen repeated killings of civilians from more than one side. In its fifth annual report, published in October, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said armed militants had killed 22 civilians in Abe Dongoro and also found that state security forces in Oromia had executed civilians accused of helping armed groups, Borkena reported. In August, the International Oromo Women’s Organization listed Oromo civilians it said were killed in Gida Ayana and in the Tulu Gena area in July and August in an appeal letter that blamed “Amhara Fano armed groups.”

Claims about Tulu Gena have also spread on X, and none of them has been independently confirmed. Amhara War Updates (@AmharaWarUpdate), whose bio says it documents “the #WarOnAmhara in Ethiopia” with data from the Amhara Association of America “and other sources,” wrote on Oct. 28 that federal troops and Gada Commando units had advanced into Amhara villages around Chancho and Mender 14 and 15 on Oct. 25, that Fano attacked Gada Commando positions the next morning, and that after withdrawing toward the town “Gada Commando forces killed more than 30 civilians in Tulu-Gana, injured others and looted properties.” The account ASHEWEGOGO (@AmharaHQ), whose bio reads “stop state-sponsored #AmharaGenocide in Ethiopia,” wrote on Monday that “42+ Amhara civilians” were killed on Oct. 26, blamed both regional forces and the federal army, and said victims had their hands tied behind their backs and were killed with machetes, which the residents quoted by the BBC did not say. In a statement dated Oct. 30 and posted by Zegabi (@ZegabiMedia), the Amhara Fano National Movement accused Abiy Ahmed’s Regime of “slaughtering the Amhara people solely for their faith and their identity, mainly in Wollega and Arsi.” Zegabi found no posts in Afaan Oromo or Tigrigna about the Tulu Gena killings.

Sources