(Addis Ababa) At least 20 people were killed on Tuesday in Gondar, a city in Ethiopia’s Amhara region (northwest), in an attack carried out by “Christian extremists” during the funeral of a Muslim cleric local, an Islamic body reported on Wednesday.
Posted at 10:33 a.m.
Questioned by the Ethiopian public broadcaster EBC, the mayor of Gondar, Zewdu Malede, simply confirmed that “a few extremists” – whose community he did not specify – had caused an “incident” which resulted in “destruction of property and loss of human life on both sides”, Muslims and Christians.
In a statement, the Council for Muslim Affairs of the Amhara region said that a “massacre was perpetrated on April 26 against Muslims who had gathered at the Sheikh Elias cemetery in the city of Gondar by Christian extremists armed with ‘individual and collective weapons’.
These “unleashed a rolling fire of automatic weapons and grenades”, specifies the Council, adding “that according to the information in (its) possession, 20 people were killed”. The wounded were taken to hospital and many properties belonging to Muslims were looted, he said.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the regional government of Amhara denounced “an attempt to break the unity of the inhabitants of the historic city of Gondar, a symbol of coexistence and tolerance, through the creation of a conflict using the pretext of religion”.
During the funeral of the Muslim dignitary, “violence which caused loss of human life and material property, was triggered by a clash between individuals over stones (necessary for the tomb, editor’s note) in an area belonging for some to the mosque, for others to the neighboring church, according to the text.
The Amhara region is overwhelmingly populated by Orthodox Christians, the most represented religion (43%) in Ethiopia, a country with approximately 30% Muslims.
“Despite relentless moves to take possession of the Sheikh Elias Cemetery, the place has always historically been a Muslim cemetery,” the Amhara Region Council for Muslim Affairs said in its statement.
The place where the deceased Muslim cleric was buried is located between a mosque and an Orthodox church, which has infuriated some Christians, said on condition of anonymity a member of the local security forces joined in Gondar by the AFP.
Several people – “more than five” – were killed, he added without being able to give a precise number, adding that the city was calm on Wednesday.
The Amhara regional government could not be reached by AFP on Wednesday and Gondar police declined to comment on the matter.
The violence is the act of “extremists, they in no way represent the Christian and Muslim communities,” the mayor of Gondar told EBC, seeming not to want to attribute responsibility for the violence.
Their aim “was to set fire to, destroy, destabilize and loot Gondar”, he assured: “they failed” and the “situation came back under control around 7 p.m.” on Tuesday.
Questioned by AFP, a senior Muslim official in Addis Ababa who requested anonymity denounced a “planned attack” and an “aggression against Muslims” that the authorities in Gondar “were unable to stop”.
He claimed that at least one mosque and a Koran had been burned. “The attackers were Christian extremists, not all Christians,” he said.