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An eyewitness who spoke to ESAT on the phone said a stampede ensued when soldiers fired tear gas at festival goers, who were also using the occasion to express grievances against the government and the killing of hundreds of their compatriots in the nearly one year of protests by the people of Oromo against a tyrannical regime. The witness said 25 bodies were found in a ravine in one place alone.
Other reports say soldiers fired live bullets from helicopters as well as from the ground. With the Internet and telephone lines cut in and around Bishoftu a.k.a. Debre Zeit since the eve of the festival, it is hard to know the exact number of the fatalities and injuries. But social media postings by Oromo activists show gruesome pictures and video of dead bodies.
The witness who spoke to ESAT said the people were protesting peacefully. The people began booing at government officials as they tried to make a speech, at which point the soldiers started shooting tear gas causing the deadly stampede, he said.
Gunfire could be heard in Bishoftu all day, 25 miles from the capital Addis Ababa, as helicopters were hovering over the town since the eve of the festival on Saturday. Some estimates put the number of festival goers at 3 million.
Meanwhile, residents of Ambo, west of Addis Ababa and Aweday, a commercial town in eastern Ethiopia have held demonstrations on Sunday in protest against the killing of their compatriots in Bishoftu. Cars were burnt and government buildings attacked in Ambo.
Sunday’s killings perhaps mark the deadliest since the protest by the people of Oromo began in November 2016 against economic and political marginalization by a minority government.
Rights groups report that over one thousand protesters were killed and tens of thousands remain in detention.
(Pictures obtained from social media)
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