Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) updated the death count in the
Wednesday attack by gunmen in western Ethiopia to almost double their previous
count. A total of 207 people have been killed in the attack, AFP reported.

Initially, it reported the death of 100 people, who were killed in their
sleep, and crops burned in an assault in the Metekel area of the
Benishangul-Gumuz region. The Metekel area, mostly inhabited by ethnic Shinasha,
Oromo and Amhara people, have been under attack for the past several months. Local
leaders blame ethnic Gumuz people for the violence.

“133 of the victims were adult men and 35 were adult women.
Seventeen children, one of whom a six-month-old baby, and 20 elderly persons
were killed,” the EHRC said in a statement posted on Twitter late Friday.

The EHRC is making efforts to identify victims with the help of
survivors and identity cards. The independent body has appealed for ‘humanitarian
assistance’.

Around 10,000 people are already on their way to city of Bulen, 40
kilometres away, to find shelter.

“Bulen city is overwhelmed. The roads leading to the city are still
teeming with displaced persons and their herds of cattle,” one eyewitness
told the commission.

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Regional authorities said on Thursday that troops had killed 42 armed
men alleged to have taken part in the massacre, without giving details about
their identities.

“The massacre in the Benishangul-Gumuz region is very tragic,”
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a Twitter post on Thursday,
conceding the government’s efforts to solve the problem “had not yielded
results”.

Abiy claimed that the latest attack was aimed at “dividing the
significant force” deployed to the country’s dissident northern Tigray
region.

There is no known link between the violence in Benishangul-Gumuz and
military operations in Tigray.

Thousands have been killed in the Tigray conflict, according to the
International Crisis Group think tank, and more than 50,000 people have fled
over the border into Sudan.