http://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/7-dead-ethiopian-police-protesters-clash-sources-1266103
7 dead as Ethiopian police, protesters clash: sources
12:00 AM, August 08, 2016 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:00 AM, August 08, 2016
http://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/7-dead-ethiopian-police-protesters-clash-sources-1266103
Afp, Addis Ababa
At least seven people were killed during fresh clashes between police
and anti-government protesters in western Ethiopia on Saturday, local
sources said, while the ethnic unrest also reached the capital Addis
Ababa for the first time.
Saturday's rally in the capital was called by opposition groups from
the Oromo, Ethiopia's main ethnic group.
Some 500 people gathered amid a heavy police presence on the capital's
main Meskel Square shouting slogans such as "we want our freedom" and
"free our political prisoners."
Police swiftly moved in to break up the protest.
The other main ethnic group, the Amhara, has also held rallies in recent weeks.
Both groups, which between them make up some 80 percent of the
population, complain that they suffer discrimination in favour of
ethnic Tigrayans, who they say occupy the key jobs in the government
and security forces.
Sources in western Ethiopia said that at least seven people were
killed during the clashes in Nemekte, in the Oromo region Saturday,
though no details emerged.
In Addis Ababa, police made dozens of arrests during the
anti-government demonstration which came less than a week after
thousands of people from the Amhara group joined a demonstration in
the northern city of Gondar.
"This is a mass movement of civil disobedience which is not organized
by political parties," Merera Gudina, chairman of the Oromo People's
Congress group told AFP.
"People are totally fed up with this regime and expressing their anger
everywhere".
Although small, Saturday's Addis rally was significant in that it was
the first of its kind in the capital.
Also Saturday, local people told AFP there had been further rallies
and clashes with police in the Oromo city of Ambo. There was also a
call for a rally yesterday in Baher Dar in the Amhara region.
Prime Minister Haile Mariam Dessalegn had Friday announced a ban on
demonstrations which "threaten national unity" and called on police to
use all means at their disposal to prevent them.
Authorities have blocked access to social media, the activists' key
channel for such rallying calls, since Friday.
Internet access was nearly impossible Saturday in Addis Ababa itself,
an AFP journalist said.
Before news of Saturday's fatalities came in, Ethiopian authorities
said at least a dozen people had been killed in clashes with police
over territorial disputes in recent weeks.
Received on Sun Aug 07 2016 - 14:41:51 EDT