ADDIS ABABA (Halbeeg News) – Ethiopian government said the unearthed mass grave contains over 200 people who were killed over the past six years after they protested against the Somali state government.
The discovery is the latest dramatic development in the gas-rich eastern Somali state, whose new President Mustafa Omer has vowed to reform the regime whose brutality and methods he compared to the mafia.
According to Bloomberg, the Ethiopian police asked for 14 more days to search for relatives of the victims and continue investigations.
Police on Thursday identified five suspects including Somali region’s ex-president, Abdi Mohamoud Omar who is facing crimes against humanity.
None of the suspects have been charged. Some of the accused asked for the case to be separated from Abdi’s case for alleged abuses, arguing they weren’t government employees at the time.
Police said on November 8 they were starting a court-ordered investigation into the grave found between the borders of the country’s troubled Oromia and Somali states.
It alleged that bodies were dumped in unmarked graves and others were left outside towns for scavenging animals, citing police sources.
In a July report, Human Rights Watch accused the force’s regiments of “serious crimes” from 2011 to early 2018.
Abdi served as the Somali region’s security chief for a year before becoming president in 2008; he was deposed by federal military forces in August.
Mustafa, his successor, has alleged he used the Liyu Police, a special force, as his personal enforcers and said violence linked.
Mustafa has replaced the leadership of the Liyu Police and vowed to reform it, with human rights being a “red line.”
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