This archive report was first published on 16 October 2019.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government has been accused of presiding over a deteriorating security situation in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley, where security forces have launched a campaign of forced disarmament.
For decades, herders in the region have relied on guns to fend off rivals and wild animals, but the disarmament campaign has been accompanied by reports of civilian killings, mass detentions, and beatings.
According to eyewitness accounts, nearly 40 people have been killed in the region as of mid-October, but the true toll could be much higher.
Government officials deny these allegations, citing the need for disarmament to secure state development projects, including sugar plantations in the area.
However, human rights groups and researchers are calling for investigations into the reports of abuses, which include the shooting of civilians, mass detentions, and beatings.
"The accounts I have seen are sufficiently shocking and come from sufficiently reliable sources to make it imperative that they are investigated by an internationally respected human rights organisation," said David Turton, an anthropologist at the University of Oxford who has worked in the region for 50 years.
Failure to investigate "will only add to suspicions that the accounts we've heard are in fact accurate", he added.
The region is home to several ethnic groups, including the Bodi, who have long-running tensions with the government over land and development projects.
"We've never seen anything like this," said Shegedin, a Bodi elder who was detained for several days and accused security forces of digging up the buried remains of a Bodi spiritual leader and shooting them.
Security forces have also been accused of shaving off the hair of one man who had grown it long following the death of his brother—a traditional Bodi mourning custom—and forcing him to eat it.
