Ethiopia: ‘Several’ killed in Oromia festival stampede

Fatalities blamed on police action against anti-government protesters during Oromia religious festival in Bishoftu.

Scores of people have been reportedly crushed to death in Ethiopia in a stampede after police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse an anti-government protest that grew out of a religious festival.

There were conflicting death toll reports following Sunday’s stampede in Bishoftu, a town 40km southeast of the capital Addis Ababa.

An AFP news agency photographer at the scene said he saw 15-20 unmoving bodies, some of whom were clearly dead.

An Associated Press news agency report said “several dozens” have died.

“As a result of the chaos, lives were lost and several of the injured were taken to hospital,” the government communications office said in a statement, without giving exact figures.

“Those responsible will face justice.”

An estimated two million people were attending the annual Irrecha event in Bishoftu.

The event took place in one of the country’s most sensitive regions, Oromia, which has seen several months of sometimes deadly protests demanding wider freedoms.

Merera Gudina, chairperson of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, told Reuters news agency at least 50 people were killed when people fled after police fired tear gas and shots in the air to disperse anti-government protesters at a crowded religious festival.

The government and opposition often give different accounts for casualties during protests.

Crowds chanted “we need freedom” and “we need justice” and prevented community elders, deemed close to the government, from delivering their speeches at a religious festival, prompting police to fire tear gas that caused the stampede.

Protesters chanted slogans against the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation, one of four regional political parties that make up the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has ruled the nation for quarter of a century.

Sporadic protests have erupted in Oromia region in the last two years, initially sparked by a land row and increasingly turning more broadly against the government.