Oromia: At least 60 people have been killed in attacks targeting Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, where armed assailants reportedly went from house to house, killing residents with gunfire and knives. The death toll remains provisional, and children and elderly people were among those killed.
The attacks took place overnight from Saturday to Sunday in Shirka district, in the Arsi area, about 270 kilometres south of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Witnesses reported that the attackers moved through residential areas, killing people in their homes.
One church was reportedly damaged during the violence. Churches in nearby villages opened their doors to people fleeing the attacks, providing shelter to those seeking safety.
The incident occurred in an area where Muslim, Protestant and Orthodox Christian communities live. The targeting of Orthodox Christians has raised concerns about religious and ethnic tensions in the region, although the full circumstances surrounding the attack remain unclear.
Ethiopian authorities suspect that a rebel coalition known as Tsimido is operating in the area. The group is reportedly made up of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Amhara Fano militias and the Oromo Liberation Army, which the Ethiopian government classifies as a terrorist organisation.
Authorities have accused the coalition of carrying out targeted attacks intended to deepen ethnic and religious divisions and divert attention from rebel setbacks in northern Ethiopia. These allegations have not been independently established in the information available.
According to Ethiopian authorities, the coalition formed an alliance with rebels in the Tigray region about a month before the latest attack. The reported objective of the alliance was to overthrow the federal government.
The Arsi area has experienced deadly violence in the past. Between late May and early June, about 11 people were killed in an attack by armed men that authorities attributed to the Oromo Liberation Army.
The latest killings add to concerns over continuing insecurity in the region, where civilians remain vulnerable to armed violence. With the death toll still provisional, the full extent of the attack and the circumstances surrounding the killings have yet to be established.