ADDIS ABABA: An insurgent group in Ethiopia’s most populous province carried out a string of attacks around last week’s election that killed multiple people, witnesses told AFP on Saturday.
The government confirmed the attacks in a statement and blamed the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), a rebel group operating in the country’s most populous region of Oromia, but did not say how many were killed or wounded.
The OLA, designated a “terrorist organization” by the government, had threatened to disrupt the parliamentary elections on June 1.
Two witnesses in Arsi zone of the region, said they personally knew 11 people who had been killed when OLA militants attacked their village of Eleta Chefa.
A medical worker told AFP he had counted 56 dead and 50 wounded from attacks on multiple localities between May 31 and June 3.
