Ethiopian airstrike on square in restive Amhara region kills 26, health official says

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — An airstrike on a crowded square in Ethiopia’s restive Amhara region has killed at least 26 people and injured more than 55, a top health official said Monday, days after authorities claim that calm had been restored in the area. .

Members of local militias have clashed with the Ethiopian army over attempts to disband them, and last week the military recaptured key Amhara cities by force.

The airstrike hit the community center of Finote Selam on Sunday, said the health official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The official said 22 people died at the scene and several of the injured had to be amputated.

Two residents said the airstrike targeted a truck carrying civilians returning from delivering food to fighters from the militia known as Fano. Your account could not be verified.

A federal government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We heard a loud sound coming from the sky,” said a local teacher. “When it fell, many people died and were injured.”

The state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission noted on Monday “credible reports of attacks and shelling” in Finote Selam and other Amhara towns “resulting in many civilian casualties.” He also said Amhara regional officials came under attack, with some killed, “resulting in the temporary collapse of the local state structure in many areas.”

Ethiopian Cabinet declared a state of emergency earlier this month in the Amhara region. The Fano militia fought alongside Ethiopian military forces in a two-year conflict in the neighboring Tigray region, which ended in a peace agreement last November.

Lawyers and witnesses say authorities are now carrying out mass arrests of hundreds, even thousands, of people in the Ethiopian capital amid the Amhara riots.

Emergency measures allow authorities to arrest suspects without a warrant, conduct searches and impose curfews. Under a previous state of emergency imposed during the Tigray conflict, tens of thousands of ethnic Tigrays were rounded up across the country.

This time, “there has been a widespread arrest of civilians of Amhara ethnic origin,” the rights commission said.

Two lawyers said emergency measures also appear to be in place in the capital Addis Ababa, where suspects are being held in police stations, schools and other makeshift detention centers after being taken off the streets. The lawyers, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

A lawyer said he visited seven schools and police stations last week where “hundreds” of people were being held. The other lawyer, citing police sources, said that 3,000 people had been detained in Addis Ababa.

A third lawyer said he met several youths in Addis Ababa police stations and courts last week who had been detained and accused of having links to the Fano militia.

An ethnic Amhara man said he was stopped on the street last week by plainclothes police officers who overheard him talking on the phone about the recent unrest. He said he was held in a school with hundreds of people before being taken to a police station. He was released Thursday without charge.

Another man said his brother was arrested in Addis Ababa a day before a state of emergency was declared and that he is being held in a school with several hundred other people. Most of the detainees there are young children, said the man, who has visited his brother twice.

The federal government said only 23 people have been arrested under the state of emergency in Addis Ababa. Among them is Christian Tadele, an outspoken opposition lawmaker who should have immunity from arrest under the Ethiopian constitution as a member of parliament.

“(N)o suspects have been arrested apart from these 23 individuals and the information circulating that there are mass arrests is incorrect,” the federal government communication service said on Friday.

The rights commission has urged that the state of exception be limited to one month and “to the specific place where it is said that the special danger has occurred, instead of applying it throughout the national territory.”