More than 40 civilians — many of them children — were killed in Bakuji (Bakuji/Bukeji) Kebele, Bulen Woreda, Metekel Zone on Saturday, November 22, according to local residents who described a door-to-door massacre and mass flight from the area. Survivors told reporters the attackers moved from house to house, breaking locked doors and killing whole families; many day-laborers and women and children have since fled.
Residents and local officials in Metekel routinely identify perpetrators along ethnic lines. In the latest attack people on the ground called the assailants “Shene” — a name commonly associated with OLA/“Shane” fighters — while other past massacres in the zone have been blamed on Gumuz (Benishangul) militias who view settlers from other groups as outsiders. That overlapping set of accusations — OLA-linked actors on one hand and Benishangul/Gumuz militias on the other — helps explain why witnesses and officials often describe the violence as ethnic persecution even when responsibility is disputed.
The pattern is not new. Metekel has been one of Ethiopia’s most volatile areas since 2019; large-scale, ethnicity-marked massacres and mass displacements have recurred, including the December 2020 attacks that human rights organizations and local sources described as targeting Amhara, Oromo and Shinasha residents. Those earlier incidents — where entire communities were singled out for attack — set a precedent that survivors say is being repeated: civilians are being killed because of who they are or where they farm, not because they are combatants.
Accountability and attribution remain contested on the ground. Some residents and local leaders say the attackers are Oromo-linked “Shene” militants (accused of looting and illegal gold extraction), while the OLA has publicly denied involvement in many Metekel-area killings and blamed security operations for worsening local tensions. The result is a circular, dangerous dynamic: communities that identify as Amhara, Shinasha, Oromo or other minorities feel exposed to targeted violence from both neighbouring armed groups and opportunistic criminal elements operating under ethnic slogans.
Violence has surged again since May 2025, with fresh attacks displacing hundreds and driving farmers and seasonal workers from their fields at harvest — a development that community leaders warn could rapidly deepen both humanitarian need and ethnic fault lines in the GERD-adjacent agricultural and gold-extraction zones. Local pleas for sustained protection, neutral investigations, and safe return corridors have gone largely unanswered; without credible security measures and impartial accountability, the cycle of ethnic persecution — killings, looting, and displacement — is likely to continue.
