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Ethiopian military base in Humera
Photo: EDUARDO SOTERAS / AFP
Amnesty International and the Ethiopian Commission on Human Rights (EHRC) reported concurring reports that more than 100 people were killed in western Ethiopia on Wednesday morning.
Armed attackers would have massacred members of the Amhara, Oromo and Shinasha population groups in villages in the Benishangul-Gumuz region.
The attacks followed a withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from the area in the west of the country, according to the EHRC.
This is a sign that the protection of human rights is declining there, it said.
On Thursday the government of the troubled region announced that around 42 armed men who were behind the attack on Wednesday had been "destroyed" by the Ethiopian army.
In addition, five high-ranking officials were arrested.
The television station Fana TV also reported on the fighting, arrows and bows and other weapons were seized.
When it came to the fighting, the station left open.
"The massacre of civilians in the Benishangul-Gumuz region is very tragic," Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
To get to the root of the problem, the government has sent troops to the area.
Amnesty said it spoke to five survivors of the attack by phone.
According to them, the death toll is likely to rise.
The Amhara Region's regional news agency, the Amhara Mass Media Agency, reported eyewitnesses about people being stabbed and shot and houses being set on fire.
Violence against ethnic minorities
This brutal attack underscores the "urgent need for the Ethiopian government to act to stop violence against ethnic minorities," said Amnesty International's Netsanet Belay.
Since September there has been several waves of violence against members of the Amhara, Shinasha, Oromo and Agew in this region.
Political cohesion in the multiethnic state of Ethiopia with its around 112 million inhabitants has been fragile for years.
There is a lot of tension between the more than 80 population groups.
The North African country, a federation of ten ethnic regions, was dominated by the northern region of Tigray for decades.
The country has never really settled since the five years of anti-government protests that brought Abiy Ahmed to power in 2018.
The protests were led by the Oromo, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group.
She denounced their political and economic marginalization under the rule of the Tigray ethnic minority.
The Amhara, the second largest ethnic group in the country, also complained about this.
The appointment of Abiy Ahmed as Prime Minister heralded the end of the supremacy of the Tigray.
One reason: his father was an Oromo, his mother was an Amhara.
Since Abiy took office, there has been repeated unrest and violence in Tigray in the north.
The rebels of the People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the central government in Addis Ababa are currently fighting for supremacy there.
It was only in November that insurgents and government troops had fought.
After six weeks, the TPLF leadership was driven out of office.
The stationing of government troops in Tigray feeds fears that there will now be a power vacuum in other regions of the country.
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