On June 19th, reports began to emerge of a mass atrocity in the Ethiopian region of Oromia committed against members of the Amhara ethnic group. This latest attack fits into a broader pattern of ethnic violence in Ethiopia since the outbreak of civil war in November 2020.

Laetitia Bader is the Horn of Africa Director at Human Rights Watch. She contributed to a joint Human Rights Watch-Amnesty International report titled “We Will Erase You from This Land: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone.” The report finds evidence of an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayan people, which is occurring in the context of Ethiopia’s ongoing civil war.

What is the State of Ethnic Violence in Ethiopia Today?

Laetitia Bader [00:02:59] It’s been very difficult to get information from that area. Now, Western Oromia has actually been the site of a lot of violence for almost three years now. There has been a very abusive counterinsurgency operation by both federal governments, but also regional government forces there. There have been other bouts of very large-scale attacks on minority communities, notably Amhara communities in Western Oromia in the last few years. So, these are unfortunately trends which have been happening for some time. This incident and the little information which has come out so far suggests that this is really a horrific and very large-scale attack, but it is happening in a context in which civilians, and this is both the Oromo population, but also the Amhara minority communities in Oromia, have been caught very much between a rock and a hard place between armed groups and also security forces. This is happening at a time where the events there have really fallen off the radar of the world. People have been ignoring Oromia more generally for the last two years, as a lot of the attention has been for very real reasons as well, on the very serious abuses which have been happening in the context of the conflict and in northern Ethiopia but the suffering of the communities and a lot of fear among the communities there has been very real. One of the trends we have repeatedly highlighted has been a context of impunity for bouts of previous violence against minority communities, but also attacks on the Oromo community there by security forces and also by armed groups there as well.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE RECENT ATTACK OF AMHARA PEOPLE IN OROMIA?

Mark L. Goldberg [00:05:12] So if indeed this was a massacre of Amhara civilians perpetrated by Oromo armed groups, which is what is being reported and alleged at this point, it would fit into a broader pattern in the region.

Laetitia Bader [00:05:31] Yes. I mean, there has been a complexity to some of the attacks on the Amhara minority communities there in the past so it’s not the first large scale attack which has been blamed on the Oromo Liberation Army. They have denied involvement. This isn’t the first time. They’ve denied involvement in these abuses in the past, but there is very little information coming out of what happens there and so the complexity is key. And ensuring that there is a context in which there can be independent investigations is so critical as well because narratives play such a key part in shaping the mindsets of many communities. And I think making sure that there is a space in which you get to the truth is absolutely key to ensure there aren’t new cycles of grievances. So yes, it does fit into previous trends, but there have also been other types of attacks involving other actors. What is very clear is that civilians have not been protected. This is an area where for a long-time communication was actually shut off in early 2020. This was really at the time when COVID was really taking off and a lot of our concerns was that key public health messaging, because the government would shut off the communications in that area where they were undertaking often quite abusive counterinsurgency operations, comms had been shut off. And so not only was there very little information coming out on what was happening, but also communities there were not receiving critical security, but also health information at the time. So, this is this is a region within a region which has been neglected and civilians have paid a high price as a result.

Source: UN Dispatch