A candlelit vigil was held at Civic Square in Burnaby to remember the massacre of hundreds of ethnic Amhara in the Oromia region of Ethiopia that happened earlier this month.
The armed group calling itself the Oromo Liberation Army, called “Shene” by the Ethiopian government, has been blamed for the killing of at least 230 Amhara people, though the group denies its involvement.
“People are killed all over the country, and no one is taking responsibility, and we didn’t see any justice, and now we're heartbroken,” said Moges Seblehiwot, the founder and president of the group Ethiopian Affairs in B.C. which organized the Burnaby vigil.
“Everyone is heartbroken, everyone is shocked, and we feel stateless.”
The Amhara people are the second-largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, which is the second-largest country in Africa with more than 110 million people.
Seblehiwot said the Ethiopian Affairs in B.C. group, which is not based on any ethnicity but has members from all over Ethiopia, is calling for the Ethiopian government to protect Amhara civilians, including women and children.
“They’ve got no protection from anyone, anything, and they are killed like chickens based on their ethnic profile,” he said.
Reports from The Associated Press say infants and children have been killed, in addition to adults. Seblehiwot says it’s a genocide.
“We are not politicians, but this is not politics—this is humanity, you know, when people are slaughtered in daylight,” he said.
