The mob of young men, carrying machetes, marched into the neighbourhood with a list of names and ethnicities of its residents. “This land is Oromo land,” they chanted.
Abebech Shiferaw, a 49-year-old widow of Amhara ethnicity, screamed for her children to flee as the mob broke into her home. She raced out, carrying her youngest child, and watched the mob set fire to her house and neighbouring houses in Shashamene, the epicentre of Ethiopia’s latest violence.
“We waited almost a lifetime to own a house and they destroyed it in the blink of an eye,” she told The Globe and Mail. “They did not just make me homeless – they broke my will to live.”
We are investigating reports of security force violence and lack of response, as well as attacks against ethnic minority communities, including killings, the destruction of homes and businesses, and displacement,” said Laetitia Bader, the Human Rights Watch director for the Horn of Africa region. “So far, property damage appears on a larger scale than in previous bouts of unrest.”
Mr. Abiy’s government has tried to balance the growing demands from Ethiopia’s various ethnicities, including the Oromo, the country’s largest ethnic group. But many Oromo leaders have been disappointed that Mr. Abiy refused to give them greater power. His planned transition to multiparty democracy “has uncorked dangerous ethno-nationalist frictions,” according to a report this month by the International Crisis Group.
-
Za-Ilmaknun
- Member
- Posts: 4486
- Joined: 15 Jun 2018, 17:40
-
Za-Ilmaknun
- Member
- Posts: 4486
- Joined: 15 Jun 2018, 17:40
Re: The Globe & Mail ..reports "We waited almost a lifetime to own a house and they destroyed it in the blink of an eye,
"I was born and raised in Shashamene, it’s the only place I know. But to the rioters, I was suddenly an outsider who did not belong here,” she says.
On that same morning, the day after Mr. Hundeessaa’s assassination, Shashamene hotel owner Tigabu Yigzaw was awakened at 5 a.m. by the bells from a nearby church, raising the alarm about the arrival of angry mobs.
He reached his hotel to find it on fire. Rioters were stealing its alcohol, smashing his windows and carting away its furniture in trucks with no licence plates. His security guard was tied to a tree and beaten. His son, the hotel manager, was lying unconscious and bleeding after a machete attack.
“It was a nightmare,” Mr. Yigzaw said. “My business was attacked because I am Amhara.”
He said he doesn’t feel safe in Shashamene any more. He worries that Ethiopia could suffer a genocide.
Munir Ahmed, manager of one of the city’s most popular restaurants, saw his restaurant destroyed by hundreds of rioters who were deliberately targeting the non-Oromo businesses on his street.
“We cried, we begged them to stop,” he said. “To them, we were the enemy. They had a plan, almost like a mission, and they executed what they came to do. Everything was destroyed.”
Most of his employees hid for several days and then fled the city, he said. “For the first time, our ethnicity is a burden. The rioters have won.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/a ... ening-the/
On that same morning, the day after Mr. Hundeessaa’s assassination, Shashamene hotel owner Tigabu Yigzaw was awakened at 5 a.m. by the bells from a nearby church, raising the alarm about the arrival of angry mobs.
He reached his hotel to find it on fire. Rioters were stealing its alcohol, smashing his windows and carting away its furniture in trucks with no licence plates. His security guard was tied to a tree and beaten. His son, the hotel manager, was lying unconscious and bleeding after a machete attack.
“It was a nightmare,” Mr. Yigzaw said. “My business was attacked because I am Amhara.”
He said he doesn’t feel safe in Shashamene any more. He worries that Ethiopia could suffer a genocide.
Munir Ahmed, manager of one of the city’s most popular restaurants, saw his restaurant destroyed by hundreds of rioters who were deliberately targeting the non-Oromo businesses on his street.
“We cried, we begged them to stop,” he said. “To them, we were the enemy. They had a plan, almost like a mission, and they executed what they came to do. Everything was destroyed.”
Most of his employees hid for several days and then fled the city, he said. “For the first time, our ethnicity is a burden. The rioters have won.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/a ... ening-the/