Dozens killed in religious festival violence

Police use tear gas and rubber bullets

Dozens of people have been crushed to death in a stampede in Ethiopia after police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse an anti-government protest that grew out of a massive religious festival.

An opposition party member said a body count at hospitals showed at least 52 dead. The stampede occurred in one of the east African country’s most politically-sensitive regions, Oromia, which has seen months of sometimes deadly demonstrations demanding wider freedoms.

Anestimated twomillion people were attending the annual Irrecha thanksgiving festival in the town of Bishoftu, south-east of the capital, Addis Ababa, when people began chanting slogans against the government, according to witnesses.

The crowds pressed toward a stage where religious leaders were speaking, the witnesses said, and some threwrocks and plastic bottles.

Police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, and people tried to flee.

Some were crushed in ditches, witnesses said.

Ethiopia’s government, through a spokesman, blamed “people that prepared to cause trouble”.

Mulatu Gemechu, with the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, said that his sources at hospitals said at least 52 people were dead and he thought the figure would rise.

Ethiopia’s government, a security ally of the west, has been accused often of silencing dissent, at times blocking internet access.

BANNED: The police reacted after anti-government gestures were seen during an annual religious festival