At least 60 Orthodox Christians were killed on October 20 and 24, 2026, in two separate attacks that took place in the districts of Merti and Shirka, in the Arsi zone of the Oromia region, in central Ethiopia, the Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church announced on Monday.<\/p>\n
Fourteen people died in Merti on October 20, followed by 46 others in Shirka four days later, according to the toll reported by the Church. More than 20 people were seriously injured and around twenty homes were set on fire.<\/p>\n
The Holy Synod did not identify the assailants nor specify the exact circumstances of the two attacks. It called on the authorities to protect civilians and bring those responsible to justice, while the perpetrators and motives of the violence had still not been established as of Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson for the Oromia regional government, Hailu Adugna, accused the Oromo Liberation Army and its allies, without providing public evidence to support this accusation. A source linked to the rebel alliance, for its part, blamed the regional authorities based on testimonies from residents. This version has not been independently verified, and the Oromo Liberation Army had not responded publicly.<\/p>\n
The Oromia region has been facing a conflict since 2018 between federal and regional forces and the Oromo Liberation Army. Human rights organizations have documented killings, displacements, and destruction attributed to several armed actors, while mutual accusations regularly complicate the establishment of responsibility.<\/p>\n
The attacks in Merti and Shirka took place in the Arsi area, which had already been affected by violence targeting civilians. In March 2026, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission had called on the federal government and the Oromia authorities to take immediate and lasting measures following a previous series of killings and destruction in the same area.<\/p>\n
The Commission had notably recommended the deployment of appropriate security forces, investigations into those responsible, and support for the victims, several months before the attacks of October 20 and 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church reports 60 faithful killed in Oromia. The perpetrators of the attacks have not been identified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":532912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_trash_the_other_posts":false,"_benews_format":"","_benews_media_url":"","_benews_urgent_until":0,"_benews_essentials":"","_benews_format_auto":"","_benews_nl_alert":false,"_benews_premium":false,"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"pays":[92],"personnalite":[],"class_list":["post-532911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","pays-ethiopia"],"acf":{"type_de_publication":"actualite","nom_de_linstitution":"","description_de_linstitution":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532913,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532911\/revisions\/532913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532911"},{"taxonomy":"pays","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pays?post=532911"},{"taxonomy":"personnalite","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benews.ci\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/personnalite?post=532911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}