OLLAA received a report on October 6 from one of our reporters in Ethiopia on the brutal extrajudicial killings of a sixty year old man named Mr. Tajjaba Gondu Boshar. The late Mr. Tajjaba was a resident of the Abuuna District, Aanaa town, in the West Shewa Zone of Oromia Regional State. According to this verified report, he was a respected man who was helping vulnerable members of his community with food and clothing. He was a local merchant and philanthropist in Abuna.
Mr. Tajjaba derived his wealth from the large clothes shop he owned in the center of Aanaa town, where he sold men’s and women’s fashion clothing. Mr. Tajjaba was blessed with nine children; four boys and five girls. His education took place during the Derg regime and went up to grade ten.
The report goes further and states that the late Tajjaba was harassed, intimidated and tortured by government security agents before he was killed and dumped in the forest. This intimidation and harassment had been going on since the beginning of 2019, leading Mr. Tajjaba to move miles away from his local area to the town of Burayyu in early 2020 with his family.
While in Burayyu, the regime continued this intimidation and security forces followed up on him. On 8th Sept, 2021, he was arrested in Burayyu town while returning from a friend’s home. The following day he was taken to Abuna by Oromia regular police. On 11th September, 2021, the report alleges that Oromia police attempted to kill him in Abuna. According to the report, once Mr. Tajjaba was in Abuna, his birth place, the police made a big show by putting him in visible positions in the back of police vans and moving him throughout the town. The young men and women from his locality staged a protest in the afternoon renouncing his arrest and transportation to Abuna.
Following this opposition from the local youths, as well as some community leaders, Mr. Tajjaba was taken back to the Abuna detention center that evening. The next morning, extended family members residing in Abuna visited the Abuna detention center, but could not find him. When they inquired, the police officers on duty refused to provide information on his whereabouts. Local community members immediately began searching for him. That evening, at around 5pm local time, his body was found dumped in the Bosona Menshini forest area of Ganda Kono. He was buried on 14th September at his rural home in Abuna.