Sixty Christians Killed in Ethiopia and Both Sides Refuse to Answer

Sixty people are dead. They were Christians, and they were killed in their own communities. Around 20 homes were set on fire, and families were left with ash where their shelter used to be. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has named it what it is: religious violence. Yet as of this reporting, no one has been willing to claim responsibility, and no one has been willing to take it. The armed groups point at the government. The government points at the armed groups. Meanwhile the bodies are still being counted.

Ask yourself what it means when sixty human beings can be wiped out in a single attack and the question of who did it becomes a matter of political convenience. It means the killers are counting on the fog. It means they believe that in the chaos of Ethiopia's armed conflicts, a village can be burned and nobody will be held to account. That belief is not an accident. It is the product of years of impunity, and we have watched it grow.

Ethiopia is not a country at peace with itself. The northern Amhara region has been shaken by a grinding insurgency involving the Fano militia since 2023, and the state has responded with its own campaigns, including airstrikes and mass detentions that rights groups have documented extensively. The country has also carried the scars of the Tigray war, which between 2020 and 2022 killed hundreds of thousands by most credible estimates, and which ended with the Pretoria Agreement of November 2022 only after enormous suffering. Oromia, Benishangul-Gumuz, and other regions have seen their own waves of violence. When the state and its challengers both wage war with weak oversight and little public accountability, ordinary people are the ones who pay. Farmers, priests, schoolteachers, and mothers become the collateral in a contest they never chose.

Here is the uncomfortable truth that every Ethiopian leader, every rebel commander, and every regional power broker needs to hear. Whether the men who did this wore rebel fatigues or government uniforms, the outcome is the same. Sixty people are dead because no authority in that region has been able or willing to protect them. A state that cannot protect its citizens from massacre has failed at the most basic task of government. A rebellion that burns the homes of civilians because of their faith has forfeited any claim to moral legitimacy. Both sides are guilty of the same failure: they have made civilians the battlefield.

Religious violence is a particularly poisonous form of this failure, because it turns neighbors into enemies and communities into targets. Ethiopia's Christians, Muslims, and followers of traditional faiths have lived side by side for centuries in places where intermarriage, shared markets, and common festivals were ordinary parts of life. When a killing is framed along religious lines, it is designed to tear that fabric apart. It is an invitation to revenge, and revenge in conflict zones spreads faster than any investigation can catch up with it. The Orthodox Church's declaration matters precisely because it names the danger before it hardens into a permanent cycle of retaliation.

So what must happen now? The first demand is simple and non-negotiable: an independent, transparent investigation into the attack, with findings made public. Not a press statement from the regional administration. Not a rebel communiqué denying involvement. A real inquiry, conducted by credible investigators with access to the scene, the victims' families, and forensic evidence. Ethiopia has a federal Human Rights Commission and an independent judiciary on paper. It is time for those institutions to prove they exist in practice. If they cannot or will not do it, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights should be formally requested to examine the case, and the African Union's Peace and Security Council should put Ethiopia's protection of civilians on its agenda.

The second demand is for accountability that does not depend on which side the perpetrators belong to. Governments that prosecute their opponents while shielding their own forces lose the moral authority to condemn anyone else. Rebel groups that massacre civilians and then deny it forfeit any claim to be defenders of the people. Rule of law is not a weapon to be pointed selectively. It applies to the soldier, the militiaman, the official, and the commander alike. Those found responsible, whatever uniform they wear, should face trial before courts that are free from political interference.

Look at the countries across our continent that have shown what disciplined, accountable governance can achieve. Botswana has built one of the most stable democracies in Africa on a foundation of rule of law, prudent public finance, and respect for the ballot. Mauritius has held peaceful transfers of power for decades and built a diversified economy that protects property rights and welcomes investment. Ghana has handed power from one government to another through the ballot box many times, even in tense election cycles. Senegal's 2024 election, which brought a new president to office after a period of serious political strain, showed that a people determined to defend their democracy can do so peacefully. None of these countries is perfect. But each has proven that when institutions are strong, when courts are independent, and when the press can report without fear, the instinct to massacre loses its shelter.

The center-right case for this is not complicated. Secure property rights let farmers rebuild their homes and tend their land. Transparent public institutions make it harder for warlords to convert conflict into looting. Independent judiciaries make impunity expensive. Free and fair elections give citizens a legitimate path to power so that they do not have to seize it with guns. A growing, rules-based private sector creates jobs that offer young men an alternative to the militia recruiter. Every one of these building blocks is available to Ethiopia. What is missing is the political will to put them in place and the public pressure to demand them.

And that pressure must come from us. The ones who will feel this most are the ones who have the least power to change it: the rural families in Amhara, the parish communities whose churches have burned, the young people who have seen too many funerals to still believe that tomorrow will be safer. Their voices should not be drowned out by the propaganda of whichever side is currently winning the information war. African journalists, civil society groups, religious leaders, business associations, and ordinary citizens across the continent must refuse to accept silence as the price of peace.

To the Ethiopian government: stop hiding behind the complexity of the conflict. Investigate this massacre fully, publish the results, and prosecute the people responsible regardless of rank or allegiance. To the armed groups operating in the north and elsewhere: if you claim to fight for your people, then stop killing them and stop burning their homes. To the African Union: your Peace and Security Council cannot keep issuing statements while sixty Christians lie dead and no one is named. To our citizens across Africa: refuse to let this become another forgotten entry in a long list of atrocities. Share the facts. Demand answers from your own leaders. Ask your representatives where they stand on the protection of civilians in Ethiopia. Sixty people deserve more than a dispute over whose fault it was. They deserve justice, and we must not stop demanding it until they get it.

Based on reporting by FRANCE24