The Globe & Mail ..reports "We waited almost a lifetime to own a house and they destroyed it in the blink of an eye,”
Posted: 22 Jul 2020, 15:55
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.
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.