At least 100 villagers killed in Ethiopia

Gunmen killed more than 100 civilians in western Ethiopia on Wednesday, humans rights groups said.

The attack, by unknown assailants, came a day after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, his military chief of staff and other senior federal officials visited the region hoping to calm tensions following other recent deadly incidents.

Since 2018, Africa's second-most populous nation has been grappling with regular outbreaks of deadly violence following the appointment of Abiy and the acceleration of several democratic reforms that loosened the state's iron grip on regional rivalries.

Elections due next year have further inflamed simmering tensions over land, power and resources. Ethnic tensions are a major challenge as Abiy tries to promote unity in a land with more than 80 distinct groups.

Over 80 bodies found in a field

Belay Wajera, a farmer from the western town of Bulen, told Reuters that he counted at least 82 dead bodies in a field near his home after Wednesday's attack.

He and his family awoke to the sound of gunshots and ran out of their home as men shouted "catch them," he said. His wife and five of his children were shot dead.

Wajera himself was shot in the buttocks while four other children escaped and remain missing, he told Reuters.

Another resident of the town, Hassen Yimama, said armed men stormed the area around 6 a.m. (0300 GMT). He told Reuters that he found 20 bodies nearby.

As he grabbed his own weapon, the assailants shot him in the stomach. Beyond attacking residents, gunmen also burned crops and houses.  

Local medics in Bulen, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from where the attacks occurred, treated 38 others who were either shot, stabbed or hit with arrows.

Patients spoke of relatives who were also killed with knives and that gunmen shot people who were trying to escape.

"We weren't prepared for this and we are out of medicine," a nurse told Reuters, adding that a five-year-old child died while being transferred to the clinic.

Ethnic battles rage nationwide

The military has become embroiled in several simultaneous conflicts. In the northern Tigray region rebels and the government are locked in a conflict that has displaced close to 950,000 people.

Another series of rebellions are ongoing in the Oromiya region and Ethiopia faces long-standing security threats from Somali Islamist militants along their shared eastern border.

mb/aw (Reuters, AP, AFP)