Ethiopia: About 30 Orthodox Christians Massacred Inside a Church By The Muslim Nobel Laureate PM

✞✞✞ R.I.P ✞✞✞

💭 The Orthodox Christians were killed in attacks on a church in southern Ethiopia on Saturday, according to reports by a religious media outlet.

The violence erupted against a backdrop of tensions in the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church after rebel bishops created their own synod in Oromia, the country's most populous region.

Abune Henok, Archbishop of Addis Ababa Diocese, described the incidents in the Oromia city of Shashamene as "shameful and heartwrenching", according to the Church-affiliated Tewahedo Media Center (TMC).

The TMC said two Orthodox Christian youths had been killed, and another four people injured, when Oromia special forces attacked the church in Shashamene, which lies about 250 kilometres (150 miles) south of Addis Ababa.

It later said there had been sniper fire on the church from nearby high-rise buildings that had killed a woman and injured others.

Abune Henok called on the authorities in Oromia, also the largest geographic region in Ethiopia, to stop the "persecution" of Orthodox Christians, according to the TMC.

A statement issued by the Holy Synod later urged clergy and the faithful to wear black in protest, and called for peaceful demonstrations at churches at home and abroad on February 12.