Report on execution of civilian hostages in military camp in Yejube town, located in Baso-Liben Woreda, (East Gojjam Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia)
Updated September 5th, 2024
Overview
The Amhara Association of America (AAA) has verified that in two separate incidents on August 13th and 21st, 2024, Oromo Prosperity Party (OPP) regime forces executed four civilians held hostage for months in a military camp in Yejube town of Baso-Liben Woreda (East Gojjam Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia).
Details of the Incidents
According to sources, the victims had been abducted by regime soldiers four months prior to their execution. AAA’s sources also reported that the execution method was inhumane, with perpetrators often taking detainees to clandestine locations and beheading them with bladed weapons. The killed victims were detained by regime soldiers under accusations of having familial ties with Fano fighters. This accusation was used to justify their prolonged detention without trial or formal charges.
In the first incident, eyewitnesses reported that on August 13th, 2024 regime soldiers executed two detainees—Tiruneh Belay and Silabat Abeje—using bladed weapons at Yejube military camp. The two victims, both civilian residents of Den Kebele, were reportedly taken hostage in an attempt to force the surrender of a common relative who was suspected to be a member of Fano. The detainees, Tiruneh and Silabat, were half-brothers to the suspected Fano member through their mother and father, respectively. The regime soldiers used this familial connection as leverage, threatening their target that his relatives would be killed unless he surrendered. After four months, the regime soldiers executed his brothers on August 13th, 2024.
In a similar incident on August 21st, 2024, AAA’s sources confirmed two more detainees, identified as Tefera Walle and Worku Walle (brothers), were executed in a similar manner. The victims, who were originally from Yelamgej Kebele, were abducted four months earlier based on allegations that their father was a suspected member of Fano. Like the previous victims, Tefera and Worku were used as hostages by regime forces, who threatened their father with their execution unless he surrendered. Despite holding them for months, no formal charges were brought against them, and after four months of detainment, the soldiers brutally executed the young men on August 21st, 2024.
According to sources, the executions of these four victims were carried out in secret, with the victims’ families kept uninformed both during their detention and after their executions. Following the executions, sources reported that the soldiers buried the bodies of the victims in undisclosed locations, to obscure evidence of the killings from family members of victims and the public.
AAA’s investigation revealed that these killings are part of a broader pattern of extrajudicial executions and inhumane treatment of civilians occurring at Yejube military camp. Many of the killed victims remain unidentified, as regime forces have conducted the executions discretely. An eyewitness, who was detained at the same military camp, informed AAA that he witnessed numerous civilians being killed and tortured during his detention. On one occasion, a journalist—whose name is withheld for security reasons—was taken by regime soldiers for execution. However, following intervention from some soldiers who opposed the execution, the journalist was allowed to survive. Sources reported that the journalist was released from custody.
Names of victims executed by OPP regime forces on the incidents on August 13th and 21st, 2024 in the military camp in Yejube town of Baso-Liben Woreda (East Gojjam Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia) are listed below.
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