After a popular musician, Haacaaluu Hundeessaa was shot in what the Ethiopian police referred to as “targeted killing”, protests erupted in Ethiopia’s capital city and other areas surrounding the Oromia region.
These protests led to military deployment as Ethiopian armed gangs roamed neighbourhoods where more than 80 lives were claimed.
Bedassa Merdasa, the Oromia police chief, said, “So far 81 people have been killed, including three Oromia special police force members.”
The killing of Haacaaluu, from the country’s largest ethnic group ‘Oromo’, invoked a sense of political marginalisation between ethnicities in Ethiopia.
This hinders the country’s planned democratic transition.
Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, have long complained of being excluded from power. Ethiopia has become an ethnic melting pot of 100 million people.
A civilian stated: “We no longer trust the police to protect us, so we have to prepare ourselves.”
Chala Hunde, the resident of Ambo, said that “Security forces have invaded our town, we can’t go out to mourn. No vehicles are moving around except security patrols with machine-guns.”
There has also been an arrest of a prominent journalist and activist Eskinder Nega. Nega runs a pressure group opposed to the narrative of the Oromos being able to dominate the capital.