ADDIS ABABA — The Ethiopian Joint Security and Intelligence Task Force disclosed Saturday it had killed 153 suspected Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebels accused of having committed a recent massacre.
The task force said in a press statement that another 900 suspected OLA rebels have been detained during a month-long security sweep from June 14 to July 14. During this campaign, individual and group level firearms, a huge amount of bullets and bullet magazines, various military fatigue uniforms, as well as several vehicles have been seized from the OLA, the statement said.
According to the statement, the killed and arrested suspected OLA rebels were related to a massacre carried out last month on mainly ethnic Amhara farmers in Tole rural locality of Gimbi district, West Wollega zone of Ethiopia’s Oromia region.
Ethiopian government officials and survivors have accused OLA fighters of carrying out the massacre, a charge the rebel group has denied. The Ethiopian government has disclosed hundreds of people were killed in the massacre.
The OLA is a breakaway armed faction of an ex-rebel group Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). In May 2021, the Ethiopian parliament voted to designate the OLA as a terrorist group.
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