OLLAA has received a credible report on the brutal killing of Mr. Alakaa Gammadaa on 16th June 2023 at a place called Lollootu by Ethiopian military personnel. The late Alaakaa Gammadaa was born in the year 1994, in Lollootu, located within Saba Boru district of the East Guji Zone. He completed his grade eight in the year 2002. After completing his primary school, he did not proceed to higher education because of financial difficulties. In the year 2005, he got married. He and his wife had three children, one daughter and two boys.
In the year 2018, the late Alaakaa joined the Oromia special police as the breadwinner for his family. According to his brother’s testimony, his family faced a lot of difficulties in his absence. Mr. Alaakaa resigned from his job in the year 2020, to help his family with farm work. It did not take long before local administrators and police came knocking, accusing him of supporting the Oromo Liberation Army that was operating within the zone.
The police accused him of quitting his job in the favor of providing material and logistic support to the Oromo Liberation Army, an allegation that was strongly denied by the deceased. According to his brother’s testimony on Jiraa media, the late Alaakaa was in and out of illegal detention centers on many occasions between 2019 to 2023. He was not charged before any court of law during his multiple arrests and detentions.
Photo of Late Alaakaa Gammadaa ( Credit Jirra Media)
On June 16th, 2023, the late Gammadaa was at his residence around 9am when military men dressed in full military gear visited him. The eyewitnesses who spoke to OLLAA narrated that the deceased was called out of his home and requested to accompany them for questioning at a nearby camp. The eyewitnesses further stated that after some few minutes they heard multiple gunshots coming from the direction of the camp.
Later that day, school children saw a lifeless body of a man in the thicket on the way home. The children reported the matter to the villagers who rushed to the scene. After reaching the scene, to their shock and disbelief, the lifeless body with multiple gunshots on chest was identified as that of Alaakaa Gammadaa.
According to the brother’s testimony the following morning, the villagers were conducting the burial when the same military men visited the graveyard and stopped the burial. They addressed the mourners and admitted killing Alaakaa Gammadaa on the allegation of being an enemy. They warned other villagers and promised the same consequences for anyone suspected of spying for the enemy.
International law
International human rights law contains the obligation for States to protect individuals from human rights violations, including violations of the right to life. This is guaranteed under numerous human rights treaties that Ethiopia is a party to, including the UDHR, ICCPR, CRC, and ACHPR. Extrajudicial executions involve the deliberate killing of individuals by state agents outside of any legal framework and therefore constitute a violation of this right. In the case of the Alaakaa Gammadaa, he was executed by well-known military personnel. We condemn such cowardly acts and call on the Ethiopian government to protect civilian life and hold individuals accountable for their actions.