By Tsion Girma And Salem Solomon /VOA/
A town on Ethiopia’s border with Kenya is on edge after Ethiopian security forces shot and killed 10 people and injured 11 others Saturday, the mayor said.
Residents of Moyale, along with the Command Post, the military unit overseeing a recently enacted state of emergency, confirmed the casualties in the southernmost part of Oromia, a region gripped in recent years by protests and government crackdowns.
By most accounts, the attack was sudden and unprovoked. Armed security forces began shooting Moyale residents in the streets and in shops and restaurants, killing and injuring apparently innocent people, most of whom were in their 20s.
Moyale’s mayor, Aschalew Yohannes, described how the attack began. “A young man was on his motorbike, and security forces stopped him and shot him,” Yohannes said. “After that, they were shooting at everyone in the town. What we have confirmed so far is that there are 10 people killed and 11 people injured, and of those five have gone to Hawasa,” he said, referring to a town more than 400 kilometers (249 miles) north of Moyale.
It isn’t clear why Golo Waqo, the man on the motorbike, was stopped and shot. He may have been participating in a peaceful protest, according to Yohannes. After killing Waqo, the security forces continued shooting people in the busy district.
“This happened in the streets of the town, and there were residential houses and cafes, and this was a place where the people were normally going about their lives.”
‘Like an enemy chasing us’
Tamam Nageso, the principal of a school in the area, was returning home for lunch when the attack unfolded. The 34-year-old husband and father of one had just completed a morning of parent-teacher meetings at the school.
The award-winning educator was walking home when a bullet struck his leg. He fell down but managed to get back up to run for safety.
The bullets kept flying, and Nageso was shot twice more. He died in the street.
“This is like an enemy chasing us. There’s no one to hold them to account, and we can only pray to God,” a friend of Nageso told VOA Amharic by phone. “We have lost a friend whom we really loved, and from now on we expect the same for us.”
Unprovoked
Residents say the attack was unprompted, and the victims were simply going about their daily lives.
“There is a church around here, Abune Aregawi, and there are shops, residential places and restaurants,” one resident told VOA by phone.
The woman said most of those killed were young, but two elderly people also died. The victims came from different ethnic groups and were going to and from work and carrying out their days in the Shewaber district, she added.
“I don’t know how they view us, but this seems like they were taking some sort of revenge,” she said. We don’t know how to live, and we are so confused. All we can say is may God help us. That’s all I can say, nothing more.”
Wrong information
The Ethiopian government has characterized the attack as a mistake due to bad intelligence.
Soldiers received a dispatch about possible activity involving the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), according to General Hassan Ibrahim, who spoke to FANA, a state-owned broadcaster. OLF is a militant opposition group that wants the current government, which considers OLF a terrorist organization, removed from power.
It was based on that dispatch, the general said, that soldiers began attacking people in Moyale. At a press conference for local journalists, a Command Post official confirmed that security forces had killed nine people in the town and injured 12 others. After the briefing, one injured person later died.
Yohannes, the mayor, found the purported mistake implausible. “It is known that OLF sometimes makes some movements through the Kenya border in the past, but there is nothing that connects this incident with OLF,” Yohannes told VOA Amharic.
A map ot the Oromia and Somali regions in Ethiopia. Moyale rests on the border between both regions and Kenya to the south. On March 10, 2018, security forces opened fire in a busy district, killing 10 residents and injuring 11 more, according to the mayor of the town.
The Command Post expressed deep regret for the attack and said it is investigating five people, including the person in charge of the security forces believed to be responsible for his incident.
Yohannes said the Command Post and local security forces aren’t in close contact, making it difficult to get answers. He called for a meeting to ensure voices from his community are heard and has lodged complaints at every level of government.
“As the mayor of this town, I would say that this should never happen to enemies, let alone citizens. This has to be improved totally — that’s what I believe. And the people are scared now due to what happened, so it is a really difficult situation,” he said.
VOA’s calls to government officials were not returned.
Calls for accountability
Yared Hailemariam, the executive director of the Swiss-based Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia, criticized the government’s response.
Hailemariam said the incident in Moyale reflects the free rein given to security forces. Asking for forgiveness and investigating those directly responsible aren’t enough, he said.
“They should hold to account not just the four to five people who are part of the security forces, but the authorities on top at the federal level leading the Command Post should be questioned,” he told VOA Amharic.
Displacement
Multiple sources told VOA that the attack resulted in large-scale displacements, with residents in fear of their lives fleeing over the border into Kenya.
One man who crossed into Kenya told VOA Amharic that he thought 2,000 people were staying in the area and said that most of the displaced people are children and women.
Another resident who fled has 13 children.
“Because security forces barged into our homes, opening the doors by force, and we didn’t even have time to ask what the problem is, I was scared and left without shutting the door,” she told VOA. “I am spending the night where I can, but I have nothing to feed my children.”
The government declared a state of emergency on February 16 to stabilize the country following continued protests and unrest.
If individuals are ordered to kneel down and then shot death, do you call that a mistake or something else? If you say that it will not qualify to be a mistake then what else is it? Remember those who are ordered to kneel down will be talking, telling their tormentors where they are from, their name, what they do for a living and where they are heading. Whether are saying all these or not they are ordered to kneel down. The next thing is gunfire where every one of them is shot to death from behind. The news I am getting is that the wound is located mostly on the back of the head and upper torso. That means all were killed execution style. So this is not gunfire from the distance. Now those soldiers who did the killing will be arrested(if not already) paraded all over the television and used as fall guys, patsies so to say. The buck should not stop with the foot soldiers because they were following orders from their bosses; their bosses gave the guidelines to kill to their soldiers, the bosses from their bosses and so it goes up the ladder until it stops with the goons on top. 9 people murdered in cold blood by mistake and that is it? No. it is not it!!! It is human lives which The Almighty Toiled To Put It Together! Nothing more priceless as a human life on this Good Earth!!! Well again, what should we expect from those Marxist-Maoists who have been raising The Name of Lord in vain since their days in the bushes. Their sacred books are not The Bible or The Qur’an but dialectic materialism. To them political power does not come with the Blessing of Our Creator but out of the barrels of the human made killing tool, the gun. These are goblin goons that our noble neighbors from Tigray would love to hate but they have been cowed down after decades of having ‘Sheikh al-Bahr on Sinbad’s back’ genie on their shoulder since 1975. Those courageous Tigrayans among them who stood up to the genie were hunted down and exterminated. We heard stories of some of them being knifed to death or disappeared altogether. I did not make this up but I came from what was told by those who were very lucky to survive and tell about it. To me Tigray is another North Korea politically but economically it is a different story. I recently read a story how one of the members of the opposition group, Arena Tigray, was robbed and the police there saying so what? Or labeled the incidence fake news? One can correctly assume that the people in that region have been harnessed and straighten up to the specs formulated by the Maoists among them after decades of being bossed around, bossed around with guns that is. Now they are being told that the infinitely harmonious people of Amhara and Oromia have developed this deadly hatred for the people of Tigray. That is a lie, a bold faced lie. It is not in the deep seated culture of both people to hate other people. Both Oromos and Amharas are not bigots. They have been intermarrying with any other ethnic groups imaginable. Am I making this up? People are not bigots. Those who are as such are always individuals. There are scabs everywhere. These two people have no bones with the people of Tigray but are tired of the human size leeches that have been bedeviling them for the last 27 years. They are resolutely peace-mongering people and not to the contrary but fearless warriors when their pride is touched. Am I lying about this historical fact, folks? That is we are witnessing now. These two glorious feel they are being humiliated. You have read what the rabid dogs of the goons on top are calling them. Amharas and Oromos are people who do not want to work. They never knew how to fight(BTW, the other goon’s rabid cadres from Asmara have been making the same remarks) and are coward. This is nothing but sheer and careless daring. It would be utter foolishness to dare a napping lion. Utter carelessness, outright imprudence. This reality on the ground makes the efforts of proponents of non-violence including me very difficult. It seems that the goons are hell-bent in starting a raging fire in these two regions. They kill in cold blood and call it a mistake just to mock the grieving families. They are like saying ‘I killed some of your people yesterday and you know what? It was all a mistake. So what I am entitled to make deadly mistakes because Oromos never have such freedom they are enjoying now until I freed them in 1991. The same goes for the Amhara. I was able to do that because I am a golden generation and those who killed were all golden soldiers’. Folks, for the life of me I don’t know what ‘golden generation and golden army/soldier’ mean. This is the perfect occasion where, as an engineer, I can say ‘I don’t understand what I don’t understand mean’. I want to say this to those who share the confidence in the power of non-violence struggle. Don’t quit. Our people have already gone through the nightmare of violence. We have lost our loved ones and cream of the crops during mayhem that violence begot. The last picture I want to see at this sunset phase of my life is a T-72 tank parked at that small rural village in the western where I was born. The last picture I want to see now is similar tank rolling through villages of my dear neighbors anywhere in the Amhara region. Violence only begets violence and the youth is the one who will carry the brunt. May The Almighty Our Creator Save Our People!!!!