BISHOFTU, Ethiopia: Ethiopia was in mourning Monday after more than 50 people died in a stampede triggered when police clashed with protesters, the latest bloody episode in a wave of anger against the authoritarian government.
Authorities have said 52 people were killed in the crush at a religious festival Sunday in the town of Bishoftu, east of Addis Ababa. But a local hospital counted 58 bodies and the opposition believes the death toll could be far higher.
The resort town in the Oromia region, popular among tourists for several volcanic lakes, is reeling after the stampede which has been blamed on police who fired tear gas at a crowd of tens of thousands of anti-government protesters.
Shoes and items of clothing littered the scene of the disaster, and a small group of angry residents were digging for bodies in a deep ditch that claimed many fleeing festival-goers.
“We’re digging because people are buried inside the ditch. Fifty-two dead is a lie,” said one of the diggers, Dagafa Dame.
Members of the group said they had dug up three corpses on Monday, however it was not clear whether these had been factored into the official death toll.
Merera Gudina, chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, told AFP he believed there had been many more fatalities than the number officially announced.
“What I hear from people on the ground is that the number of dead is more than 100,” said Gudina.
Members of the country’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo, had gathered at a sacred lake in Bishoftu for a religious festival of thanksgiving called Irreecha to mark the end of the rainy season.
However political grievances took over, with Oromo protesters chanting anti-government slogans and crossing their wrists above their heads, a gesture that has become a symbol of protest against a government considered among the most repressive in Africa.
A video on social media networks showed one protester clambering onto the stage, grabbing the microphone and shouting “down, down” with the ruling Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)
Chaos erupted after police charged the protesters and fired tear gas, sending panic through the heaving crowd.
Fedesa Mengesha, a doctor in the town’s main hospital, told AFP that his colleagues had registered 58 dead, many bleeding from the mouth and nose.
“I don’t know if other bodies were taken somewhere else, or taken by their families,” he said, adding that despite reports that security forces had fired live bullets at the crowd, there was no evidence of this.
The regional government said in a statement that 52 people had died in the ensuing stampede.
Merera Gudina, chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, told AFP he believed there had been many more fatalities than the number officially announced.
“What I hear from people on the ground is that the number of dead is more than 100,” said Gudina.
Three days of national mourning were declared on Monday, with the national flag being flown at half-mast in government institutions and regular radio programs replaced with music.
Ethiopia mourns scores killed in festival stampede
Ethiopia mourns scores killed in festival stampede
EU leaders begin India visit ahead of ‘mother of all deals’ trade pact
- Antonio Luis Santos da Costa, Ursula von der Leyen are chief guests at Republic Day function
- Access to EU market will help mitigate India’s loss of access to US following Trump’s tariffs
New Delhi: Europe’s top leaders have arrived in New Delhi to participate in Republic Day celebrations on Monday, ahead of a key EU-India Summit and the conclusion of a long-sought free trade agreement.
European Council President Antonio Luis Santos da Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrived in India over the weekend, invited as chief guests of the 77th Republic Day parade.
They will hold talks on Tuesday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the EU-India Summit, where they are expected to announce a comprehensive trade agreement after years of stalled negotiations.
Von der Leyen called it the “mother of all deals” at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week — a reference made earlier by India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal — as it will create a market of 2 billion people.
“The India-EU FTA has been a long time coming as negotiations have been going on between the two for more than a decade. Some of the red lines that prevented the signing of the FTA continue to this date, but it seems that the trade negotiations have found a way around it,” said Anupam Manur, professor of economics at the Takshashila Institution.
“The main contentious issue remains the Indian government’s desire to protect the farmers and dairy producers from competition and the European Union’s strict climate-based rules and taxation. Despite this, both see enormous value in the trade deal.”
India already has free trade agreements with more than a dozen countries, including Australia, the UAE, and Japan.
The pact with the EU would be its third in less than a year, after it signed a multibillion CEPA (comprehensive economic partnership agreement) with the UK in July and another with Oman in December. A week after the Oman deal, New Delhi also concluded negotiations on a free trade agreement with New Zealand, as it races to secure strategic and trade ties with the rest of the world, after US President Donald Trump slapped it with 50 percent tariffs.
The EU is also facing tariff uncertainty. Earlier this month Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on several EU countries unless they supported his efforts to take over Greenland, which is an autonomous region of Denmark.
“The expediting factor in the trade deal is the unilateral and economically irrational trade decisions taken by their biggest trading partner, the United States,” Manur told Arab News.
Being subject to the highest tariff rates, India has been required to sign FTAs with other major economies. Access to the EU market would help mitigate the loss of access to the US.
The EU is India’s largest trading partner in goods, accounting for about $136 billion in the financial year 2024-25.
Before the tariffs, India enjoyed a $45 billion trade surplus with the US, exporting nearly $80 billion. To the EU’s 27 member states, it exports about $75 billion.
“This can be sizably increased after the FTA,” Manur said. “Purely in value terms, this would be the biggest FTA for India, surpassing the successful FTAs with the UK, Australia, Oman and the UAE.”
