An extrajudicial killing has taken place in Oromia, leaving dead a boy who was not yet old enough to participate in politics, according to reports by Ethiopian news outlets Oromia 11 and OMN.
Nuna Benti Geleta was born in the Boda town of Dendi woreda. Prior to this death, Nuna had been a student in grade four. According to Benti Geleta, Nuna’s father, Nuna had no known connection to any political parties and was “a good boy.”
Fourteen-year-old Nuna was standing outside of the gate of his family home in the Dendi district of Oromia at approximately 5:00 p.m. on the evening of May 21, 2022 when a motorcade of armed regional and federal government officials traveling from Waliso, a town located in the Southwest Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region, began firing at him. As Nuna fled the scene, the men followed after and fatally shot him.
Nuna’s mother reportedly lost consciousness upon hearing the news her son had been killed. Nuna’s father, Benti Geleta, carried his son’s body home, and his cries of anguish alerted their neighbors to the shooting that had just occurred.
The following day, Nuna’s parents placed their son’s body in a vehicle to transport the body to Menelik II, a large hospital in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, two and a half hours from their home. Although there are closer hospitals, Menelik II is renowned for the quality of its autopsy department, and Nuna’s family, wanting to ensure dignity and justice for their son, prepared themselves for the long, somber drive. Before the Geletas could make it to the main roads that would carry them to Menelik II, they were stopped by government officials and ordered to return home.
Neither Nuna’s family nor the local community considered calling the police following his death. Justice for unlawful killings at the hands of Ethiopian state agents is hard to come by in the region, where Oromo civilians accused of crimes reliably face due process violations, while state agents are free to commit random killings with impunity.
According to a neighbor who lives near to the scene of the crime, “There is no law enforcement in all parts of Oromia now. No one can take the killers to the court. They can kill and no one can ask them, and that is why our people are suffering.”
International Law:
In international law, when a State ratifies a treaty, it has then an obligation to apply the obligations raised by the treaty. Ethiopia ratified the Convention of the Rights of the Children in 1991. However, it seems evident with this case that the rights of children are not respected, especially Article 19-1-a, which insists on the protection of the right to life for minors. Nuna Benti Getela was 14 when he was deprived of this right, which enters in direct contradiction with Ethiopia’s international obligations.
“Human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the integrity of his person. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of this right.” Another evident violation, this time of Article 4 of the African Convention on Human Rights, which was also ratified by Ethiopia in 1998. This act of cruelty is indeed a demonstration of carelessness for its international obligations, as the Ethiopian government lets its own citizens, and especially children, be killed arbitrarily by its own regional and federal forces.