Religious Festival Marred by Deadly Viole

The deadly stampede occured on Sunday, October 2 at the annual Irrecha festivalof thanksgiving in Bishoftu town in the Oromia region - a region known for its protests which have often been clamped down upon by security forces.

Thousands of people had gathered at a sacred lake in Bishoftu to take part in the Irreecha ceremony, in which the Oromo community marks the end of the rainy season.

However, political grievances took over, with Oromo protesters chanting anti-government slogans and crossing their wrists above their heads, a gesture that has become a symbol of protest against the government.

When police fired teargas and guns into the air, crowds fled and created a stampede, some of them plunging into a deep ditch.

Fedesa Mengesha, a doctor in the town's main hospital, told AFP that his colleagues had registered 58 dead, many bleeding from the mouth and nose.

Police say they fired tear gas after anti-government protesters threw stones and bottles, but others said demonstrators were entirely peaceful.

Merera Gudina, a member of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), an opposition party said that the government had tried to use the festival to cover up the ongoing Oromia protests, a move turned down by the people in attendance who shouted down the elders who rose to speak.

The national flag was being flown at half-mast in government institutions and regular radio programs were replaced with music as the nation mourned those killed.

"I can assure you 100 percent that all the 52 victims died of a stampede and didn't have bullet wounds on their bodies", he said. They are responsible. People are angry.

The regional government blamed "irresponsible forces" for the disaster.

Back in 2014, the Ethiopian government laid out a development plan that would expand the capital into the extensive farmland of the Oromia region.

"For the last 25 years the Oromo people have been marginalised in many things".

Bunches at Sunday's Oromo festival, which AP news agency said had attracted two million individuals, chanted "We desire liberty" and "We need justice", witnesses said.

The TPLF, a former rebel militant group, overthrew the dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.

The protests in Oromia later spread to the northern Amhara region, and global rights groups estimate at least 500 demonstrators have been killed and hundreds injured over the past 10 months Read more here