60 Christians Killed in Ethiopia Oromia Attacks Today Latest News

Sixty dead. Fourteen in one place, forty-six in another, and both counts landed in a single church statement on a Monday morning. The numbers are stark enough on their own, but it is the split that stays with you, because it means two separate days of killing in two separate communities, each left to bury its own dead.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church says at least 60 people were killed in two separate attacks in Ethiopia's conflict-hit Oromia region in the past week. The church's Holy Synod said 14 believers were killed in Merti Woreda on 20 October and 46 in Sherka Woreda on 24 October, in the Arsi Zone of central Ethiopia.

More than 20 homes were burned and more than 20 people were hospitalised with severe injuries, according to the church statement issued on Monday 26 October. Church authorities said the dead were all Christians, but did not go into details on how they died or who was behind the attacks, Reuters reported.

Ethiopia Oromia Attacks: What the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Reported

TRT World names the places as Gora Silingo, Angada Kebele, in Merti district, and Tereta, Chole and Birbo in Shirka district, both in the Arsi Zone. The spelling of the region varies by outlet, with some using Oromia and others Oromiya, and the district name is given as both Sherka and Shirka in the reporting.

The Holy Synod described the killings in language that left no doubt about how the church sees them. Its statement spoke of the suffering inflicted on ordinary people in their own communities, and it called on the authorities to act rather than simply to note what had happened.

Extremely tragic cruelty and suffering inflicted on our citizens.

That description comes from the Holy Synod, as reported by Al Jazeera and TRT World, and it is the church's own characterisation of the attacks. The church did not, in the accounts reported, set out a detailed account of how each person died, and that restraint matters when so much else about the attacks is still contested.

For the families involved, the known facts are already more than enough to carry. A burned home in a farming community can mean stored food, tools and the small things a family has gathered over years going up in smoke in a single night, and more than 20 people in hospital means more than 20 families waiting for news that has not yet come.

Blame Disputed After Oromia Attacks Killed 60 Christians

Blame for the attacks is disputed, and readers should hold that dispute in mind through every claim that follows. The Oromia regional government and a source linked to a rebel alliance fighting government forces in Tigray traded blame, Reuters reported, with each side pointing at the other.

The regional government said the rebel alliance launched the attacks to try to spark religious conflict, without providing evidence, according to Reuters. That last detail is important, because an accusation reported without evidence is not the same as a finding, and this article does not present it as one.

The Oromo Liberation Army, known as the OLA, is one of seven armed groups that announced last month they had formed an alliance aimed at overthrowing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government, Reuters reported. The OLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and no perpetrator should be named as established fact on the basis of these reports alone.

The pattern here will feel familiar to readers who have followed other attacks on Christians in Africa. A church counts its dead, a government and its armed opponents blame each other, and the families wait for protection. The wider reporting gives that waiting a grim context, as 7,500 Christians killed in Africa in 2026 in the latest report on Nigeria persecution shows, and the Intersociety report on the Nigeria death toll sets out the same continental scale in detail.

Church Demands Protection and Justice for Oromia Christians

The Holy Synod called on government institutions to publicly condemn the attacks, strengthen civilian protection and ensure those responsible are brought to justice, TRT World reported. Those are three seperate demands, and each one points to a different failure the church believes it has seen: silence where condemnation was needed, weakness where protection was needed, and impunity where justice was needed.

Public condemnation matters because it tells the affected communities that their loss has been seen. Stronger civilian protection matters because statements alone do not keep a village safe on the next night. Justice matters because, without it, the next statement from the church may be counting a new set of dead, and the cycle the church is describing will simply roll on.

The statement was recieved on Monday 26 October, and the reporting that followed on 27 October carried the church's account to a global audience. That speed means the pressure on the authorities is now visible far beyond Arsi Zone.

Readers who have followed attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria will recognise the same questions being asked here, including in the report of 9 Christians killed in Benue, Nigeria and the earlier Ethiopia Orthodox Christians killed in Oromia report. The names and places change, but the questions do not: who did this, who will be protected next, and who will answer for the dead.

Those questions are still open in Oromia, and they will stay open until an investigation produces answers that can be tested rather than claims that can only be repeated. The church has asked for condemnation, protection and justice in that order, and the coming days will show whether any of the three arrives in the communities that buried 14 people on one day and 46 on another. What the families do next, and whether they feel safe enough to rebuild the homes that burned, is the part of this story no statement can yet answer.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.