Massacre of Christians in Ethiopia: Bodies lined up wrapped in white cloths

A massacre of a Christian community has further intensified the new civil war in Ethiopia. The Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church confirmed on Monday the deaths of 60 people in attacks on churches and huts in two towns in Shirka district in the Arsi area, some 270 kilometers south of the capital Addis Ababa, on October 20 and 24, the Addis Standard newspaper reported on Tuesday. The Ethiopian Church called for prayers for the dead worldwide on Tuesday.

A local list of those killed in Saturday's second attack includes 46 names of people between the ages of 4 and 75. Video footage shared by Christian organizations in the area shows corpses lined up wrapped in white sheets and blankets, some of them very small, suggesting children. In other recordings, the burial of the dead is shown in the presence of clergy and with traditional Ethiopian church chants.

The massacres took place in the central Ethiopian state of Oromia, which covers the settlement areas of the largest Ethiopian population, the Oromo, in the highlands around the capital Addis Ababa. Like every Ethiopian state, Oromia has its own regional army, which reports to the Ethiopian Armed Forces. Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has ruled the country since 2018, rose through their ranks. The armed rebel group OLA (Oromo Liberation Army) is fighting against him.

The OLA is part of the newly formed rebel coalition "Survival Alliance of the Ethiopian People's Armed Forces", which went to war again against Ethiopia's central government in September under the leadership of the breakaway Tigray rebel army TPLF (Tigray People's Liberation Front). In addition to the TPLF, its most important components are the Oromo rebel group OLA and the local militia Fano of the Amhara state, located between Oromia and Tigray, the birthplace of Ethiopian Christianity several thousand years ago. Tigray became the scene of heavy fighting between the TPLF and Ethiopia's army, the rebels are supported by neighboring Eritrea.

Against this background, the spread of violence to other regions of Ethiopia is alarming. Circles close to the government blame the OLA, which has long been classified as an Islamist-infiltrated terrorist organization, for the Shirka massacres. Other sources identify the perpetrators as the pro-government Oromia Regional Army, which suspects Orthodox Christians of being Amharic Fano sympathizers. It is said that Ethiopia's army watched the massacres from close up and only moved into the attacked villages a day later.

Regardless of the dispute over who was responsible, violence has shaken the affected area since the beginning of the new war. According to reports from the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission EHRC in July, rebels in Shirka have killed 432 civilians and 4 members of the regional armed forces since 2021.

There were renewed attacks in the area for several days around the Ethiopian parliamentary elections on June 1, which both the OLA and the Fano militias tried to prevent with violence. According to reports from the Meseret Media news service, 37 people were killed and two historic church buildings were completely destroyed. The survivors fled into the surrounding forests.

In mid-June, an Amhara source reported on X that of the 37 Orthodox churches in Shirka, 26 had already been destroyed and the death toll had reached 169. According to the same data, the number of displaced people in the area reached 20,000 by mid-October. The latest attacks came at a time when Fano militias in Amhara captured a city for the first time and killed 115 Ethiopian soldiers. None of this information has been independently confirmed.