At least 52 people are dead after a stampede Sunday at the Oromo Holy Festival in Ethiopia.
Police fired warning shots before "troublemakers" at the festival in Bishoftu physically attacked elders who were going up to the stage to say their blessings for the new year, Communications Minister Getachew Reda said, according to CNN. It was the warning shots that led to the stampede.
Reda said the shots were fired up in the air, but Ethiopia’s opposition party claimed police fired live bullets into a crowd and as many as 120 people were killed as a result, CNN noted.
“This goes down as one of the darkest days in modern Oromo history,” Merera Gudina, chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress, told CNN.
The deadly incident could reignite demonstrations across the country’s largest region and increase political risk with one of America’s most important African allies.
Ethiopia has one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, and it's also part of an internationally funded African force that’s fighting militants linked to al-Qaida.
“People are now angry and we expect a huge backlash in Oromia,” said Miles Midega, a doctoral candidate at the Center for Federal Studies at Addis Ababa University, Bloomberg reported. “This is going to inflame another round of deadly protests.”
According to Gudina, the violence stemmed from festival attendees refusing to obey orders.
“The ruling party has been trying to control the festival and use if for its own political interests,” he said, according to CNN. “The people gathered refused to listen to speeches of the ruling party. In that confrontation the security forces started to shoot and use tear gas and live bullets. That created chaos.”
Reda has denied that claim though.
“Of the people’s bodies who were collected, they do not have any bullet wounds whatsoever,” Reda said, according to CNN. “They were killed in the stampede. The security forces were mostly unarmed and none of them were involved in firing at the people.”
“There was no force involved on the part of the security forces — after all, this event was a people’s event,” he added.
According to CNN, there were an estimated 2 million people in attendance to take part in the Irreecha ceremony recognizing the Oromo New Year.
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