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Oromia Police shot dead two, injure several others at Timket festival over flag controversy

Two people were killed and several others were injured in a stand-off between security forces and participants of Timket festival in Burayu town in the Oromia special zone surrounding Finfinne, reports said.

Eyewitnesses told DW Amharic that parishioners of St. Mary church in Burayu town who were escorting the Tabot ( a sacred replica of the Ark) from Addis Abeba back to the town for the Timket festival were prohibited from entering the town carrying the tricolor flag: plain green, yellow and red with Orthodox Church logo. According to the witnesses, the standoff quickly intensified when security forces fired rubber bullets and live bullets into the crowd killing two people. Several people including children and the elderly were injured in the stampede, the witnesses said.

The witnesses attribute the attack to Burayu town police while some swore that local communities launched an attack on the crowd. A member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church (EOTC) media board blamed the government for failing to deploy both regional and federal security forces to the area beforehand.

The head of the peace and security bureau of Burayu on his part said that Addis Abeba police alongside federal police and Ethiopian National Defense Forces were at the scene trying to contain the situation with regional police and the local militia. While giving his account of the incident he said, “The youth from Addis Abeba tried to enter the town with the unlawful flag prohibited by the law”. According to him, the youth entered the town before the Tabot arrived and threw stones at the security forces and their vehicles. He went on to claim that the youth tried to take weapons from security forces, “Eventually shots were fired. We don’t know who was the first to open fire.” He commended the residents of Burayu town for averting further crisis.

Oromia Police

The security head added, “We are saddened by the loss of lives, the perpetrators will be held accountable.” The federal government also vowed to investigate the incident and prosecute the perpetrators.

Oromia Police

AS

3 thoughts on “Oromia Police shot dead two, injure several others at Timket festival over flag controversy”

  1. What a moral decadence from the Oromo supremacists. There is no end to their deeply rooted hate. Most promos of today know way better that all the lands that has been confiscated from them are in the hands of newwly formed Oromo oligarchy the same that have been sucking th sweat and blood of Ethiopians with TPLF for the last 30 years. The Oromo elite in the exile which most do not even teach the Oromo language to their kids or the top Oromo ii ntelectuals to not even leave by any African or Oromo tradition literally close to dysfunctional raise again and again the Oromo question. The Oromo question is simple and clear that most of Oromo have been devoid for their true ancestral identity and forced to accept the Oromo culture that is the damn truth. So swallow that no matter of innocent life you take the reality of you never will change until you come to terms with that. People who got assimilated in Amhara culture never went on this length of hate to prove their identity. So the only with issues here and the solution is in yourselves.

  2. The question is why is Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church have that flag what is about That flag does not represent the Ethiopian population some LIKE OROMO,AFAR ,SOALIA AND TIGRAY the flag represent to some of them as the time where seen as second class and ruled by the Amhara chauvinist so 1 the church should not allow that flag in the Tabot ( a sacred replica of the Ark) at Timket festival church flag is the cross nothing else just the cross the way thing are going especial with religion there will no Ethiopia think before you do something in Gondar THEY HAD THE OLD ETHIOPIAN MAP IN THE TIMKET FESTIVAL FOR US ERITREAN WE DO NOT CARE B/C ONE MORON PERSON DID AND WE KNOW THAT THE MAP WILL NEVER EVER EXIST FACE THE REALITY .AGAIN BE POLITIACAL CORRECT THIS FOR THE FEW AMHARA CHAVINSIT IF NOT TPLF WILL COME AGAIN

    1. Please do not be silly hypocrite like About and his Oromo supremacists. In one hand he creates museums with the luxuries of the kings and on the other side will not even allow the poor and pesants that have build that country with their backs and sacrificed their fathers, grandfather and ancestors for all Ethiopians to enjoy the freedom we have today. That flag represents life’s lost of loved ones to defend the country from a number of enemies. The flag that does not have no emblem is the flag of the people. You well know the flag of the king’s did have the lion of Judah. You just using the second class citizens mantra to play your Ascari play like you always do from time immemorial. Your should be thankfule for that flag the country you enjoy today was also beneficiary of the blood spilled for that flag otherwise you would not have the social fabric you have today but what Italians would allow you to. You never were second citizen when you were part of Ethiopia but in fact your were treated with special status by the last king. You were the ones given school opportunities and military command. The same is true of Promos and other ethnicities. The bottom line is of liberation fronts including your Jena and Shania were mules and sellouts that have bitten their ownotger country. That is the truth. You were mule of westerners and Arabs. I am not sure where your hate started but I can imagine the iniatorsvif this hate are the ones who got punished after the Adwa battle for their collaboration with the enemy army. The punisent was brutal and even the king was adamant to go with it. But the erudites forced the punishment administration and that has as today with what we have. It really was unfair to pardon the white enemies and not of one’s own and that is something like deep wound on the peoples of the Horn of Africa. In any case the last Negus have done all the humanely possible to close that gap and heal the wound. And on any case from the beginning if there was not enemy collaborators from our within be it with Italians. Turks. Egypt orWest from time immif emorial we would not have this rift. If there was not smaller kingdoms and Sultanate selling humans like slaves to forginers. Whites and Arabs we will not have this rift. If there was not today some enlisting with foreign powers to harm the country and the people we would not have this rift. So when you talk about that flag think about all the blood got spllled for yours today freedom and that blood spilled is not only of Amharas. But Oromos Tigres, Eritrians, Somalis, Guyragues. Sidamas. kembatas. Gamos. Dorzes, and all the rest of Ethiopians that have lost someone in the battlefields. The only one hating that flagmust be those bandas that have it running on their blood.

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