By Hailegebriel Endeshaw
Staff Reporter
ADDIS ABABA – (BORKENA) – Office Head of Prosperity Party (PP) was gunned down while driving back to his home region. The PP Office of Afar Region disclosed that Umer Lemma who was a senior leadership member of the ruling party was killed by armed men who were lying in an ambush last Saturday on a road that leads from Adama Town to Awash, Oromia Region.
The PP head of Gebiresu-Hanruka Woreda in Afar Region was driving back to Afar while the armed men opened fire at his vehicle. Regional party office said that two people were shot-dead during the attack. The office further said that Umer Lemma was killed after the attack perpetrated by the “terrorist”.
In a related development, Anchor Media said that the killing was perpetrated by armed men of Oromo Liberation Army or shene as named by the government. The source quoted eyewitnesses in the area that the victims were driving to Awash from Adama Town last Saturday night when the militias killed Umer Lemma and his brother. The people said that such incidents have become a common trend in the area, which is located between Metehara and Welenchiti Towns of Oromia Region, Anchor Media said.
“Heavy duty truck drivers were killed, people were kidnapped. The people are in severe pain in this area,” eyewitnesses said. Though the National Defense Force is deployed in the area, it can hardly stop the attack, the eyewitnesses told Anchor Media.
It is to be recalled that a cross-country public bus driver and an assistant were killed and several others sustained severe injuries in an attack perpetrated by armed men in the same place on 27 April 2023.
Similarly, Ethiopian Transport Employers Federation disclosed on 03 April 2023 that 15 drivers riding from Awash to Welenchiti in Oromia Regional State were kidnapped.
The people are asking why the government has not been able to find a solution to the problem in this special zone, a route in which import and export items are transported and citizens have been moving day and night without fear.
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This shows these so-called ‘liberation’ fronts are not grouped under a centralized leadership just the way we see them here. One republic dreamer in the Midwest and the other similar dreamer could be in the East but they don’t see each other eye to eye with one thinking himself as the much better expert with no peers. Such attitude steeped with unwieldy arrogance is widespread among such ‘elites’ who successfully grabbed away the platforms. They all think themselves as ‘liberation fronts’ of their own making/brand. Now unless elders on both sides are able to control the tension this may create, expect the clan of the victims to retaliate. The anger among our Afar brothers and sisters from the recent conflict in the North is still smoldering/alive. That country does not need another senseless bloodshed.