ETHNIC VIOLENCE
Attacks in Ethiopia targeting minorities leave scores dead
Addis Ababa — At least 23 people were killed in a weekend of violence targeting minorities in the ethnic Oromo heartland near Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, police said. It is a blow to new reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s efforts at reconciliation. The violence escalated on Saturday, the day of a rally marking the return to Ethiopia of leaders of the exiled Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which had waged a four-decade insurgency for self-determination for Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group. Abiy, himself the first Oromo leader in the ethnically diverse country’s modern history, has been pursuing a reconciliation strategy since taking power in April, steering the state away from a hardline security policy in place for decades. In the latest unrest, local residents said shops were looted and people attacked by mobs of Oromo youth who stormed through streets targeting businesses and homes of ethnic minorities on Saturday after two days of sporadic attacks in the Oromiya region’s Bur...
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