Protesters are being shot in Ethiopia, Europe’s strategic partner

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), demands the European Union (EU) to condemn the recent violent crackdowns on unarmed protesters in Ethiopia. Since last Friday, protests of members of the Oromo and Amhara in more than a dozen cities were broken up violently. According to eyewitnesses, up to 35 people lost their lives; dozens were injured and many arrested.

“The EU must not remain silent if Europe’s strategic partner Ethiopia systematically restricts the freedom of expression and uses excessive force against demonstrators. State terror against marginalized communities cannot be tolerated,” said Ulrich Delius, the STP’s Africa-consultant, in Göttingen on Monday. Further, he called for an independent inquiry into the events and demanded the detained protesters to be released. There must be immediate measures to clarify the actual extent of the violence – and who was responsible! Further, the STP strongly opposed of the authorities’ decision to block social media and the Internet, as well as to ban protests that are seen as potential “threats to national unity”.

Apparently, many people got killed or injured in Bahir Dar, the capital of the region of Amhara in the north of the country. There, according to eyewitness reports, up to 20 people got killed when members of the ethnic group of the Amhara protested against the government policy. Many of the injured wound up in hospital with gunshot injuries. On the same day, members of the Amhara also protested in Quara, Dansha, Soreka, Meteman, and Shinfa Shedi. Last Friday, two people were killed in the crackdown on protests in the city of Gonder. A day later, four Amhara got killed in the same region. The Amhara have now been demanding the government to step down for several weeks. The protests are also about the territorial allocation, which is seen as unjust. About 20 members of the Amhara had already lost their lives in the course of two large demonstrations in July 2016.

In the scope of their protests, the Amhara are also showing solidarity with the especially marginalized ethnic group of the Oromo, who – on August 6/7 – had gathered in more than ten cities in the Oromia region to protest against their disenfranchisement. Reportedly, two people got killed in Nekemte, and seven in the town of Ambo. In Ambo, there were major police raids in which hundreds of houses were searched for alleged demonstrators. The Oromo are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. Since November 2015, more than 450 members of the Oromo have lost their lives in clashes with the security forces in the scope of the protests against land grabbing. 

Header Photo: Rod Waddington via Flickr