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State affiliate Fana TV reported that weapons were also seized from men accused of killing more than 100 people on Wednesday.
The Ethiopian army killed 42 gunmen accused of participating in a massacre in the western region of Benishangul-Gumuz, state affiliate Fana TV reported Thursday.
On Wednesday, the country’s human rights commission said gunmen killed more than 100 people in an attack at dawn in the town of Bekoji, Benishangul-Gumuz.
Fana TV, citing regional officials, reported that soldiers seized bows, arrows and other weapons in the raid.
Early Thursday, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said forces were deployed in the region, an area that has suffered regular ethnic violence.
“The massacre of civilians in the Benishangul-Gumuz region is very tragic,” Abiy said on Twitter. “The government, to solve the root causes of the problem, has deployed a necessary force.”
The Ethiopian state news agency said five senior local officials were also arrested on Thursday in connection with security problems in the Benishangul-Gumuz region.
‘Catch them’
Belay Wajera, a farmer in the western city of Bulen, told Reuters news agency that he counted 82 bodies in a field near his home after Wednesday’s attack.
He and his family woke up to the sound of gunshots and ran out of their house as men yelled “catch them,” he said.
He said his wife and five children were shot and killed. He was also hit by a bullet while four other children escaped and are now missing.
Another city resident, Hassen Yimama, said gunmen stormed the area around 6 am local time (03:00 GMT). He grabbed his own gun but the attackers shot him in the stomach.
Abiy and senior officials visited the region on Tuesday to call for calm after multiple deadly attacks in recent months, including the Nov. 14 assault in which gunmen attacked a bus and killed 34 people.
The Ethiopian army has been fighting rebels in the northern Tigray region for more than six weeks in a conflict that has displaced about 950,000 people. [Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP]
“We have been listening to this for over a month. The ethnic conflict in Ethiopia has been regular and there has to be a comprehensive solution, as we have seen that they will not be contained by command as the government has tried to do in the past, ”Ethiopian researcher and lawyer Mastewal Taddese told Al Jazeera . .
Amnesty International, who spoke to five survivors, said that members of the Gumuz ethnic community attacked the homes of the Amhara, Oromo and Shinasha ethnic people, setting them on fire and stabbing and shooting residents.
The Gumuz view minorities as “settlers,” the rights group said, adding that the whereabouts of dozens of people are still unknown.
Africa’s second most populous nation has been battling outbreaks of deadly violence since Abiy took office in 2018 and accelerated democratic and economic reforms that have loosened the state’s iron grip on regional rivalries.
In a separate part of the country, the Ethiopian army has been fighting rebels in the northern region of Tigray for more than six weeks in a conflict that has displaced about 950,000 people. The deployment of federal troops there has sparked fears of a security vacuum in other troubled regions.
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