Country: Ethiopia

Group: Kembata

Date: 04/12/2023

Team: Monica Hallock (lead) Esha Kubavat, Kate Edwards, Hajer Rahee, Julia Curtiss, Brandon, Neverez

Content Warnings: Lethal violence, murder, and mass killings

Approximate Time Period:  1991-2019

The Kembata are a group in the south-western region of Ethiopia, numbering about 1.8 million people, and they speak a Kushtic dialect (RefWorld, 1992).

There are two documented incidents of lethal violence against the Kembata. First, in December of 1991, at a funeral consisting of mostly Gumz people, a settler from a nearby Kembata and Hadiya village attended. The settler fired a gun to the air to express his condolences. Unintentionally, one of the shots killed a Gumz man. This death resulted in the mourners killing the gunman and attacking the Kembata and Hadiya villages. The attack resulted in the death of 57 villagers and the looting of their belongings (Gebre 2001). Gumz mourners later had to compensate the victims’ families 2000 birr (USD $400). No other legal action was enforced.

Second, in January in 2019 the Gumz delivered an ethnically-motivated attack against the Kembata and other minority groups. Gumz people used arrows and guns and killed at least 37 people including children (Woldie, 2019).

Many Kembata people are moving to South Africa to escape the conflict in Ethiopia and the trafficking in their region. However, the migration routes are not easy to travel and have resulted in detention and death due to hunger, exhaustion, and violence (Berhane, 2022). On a scale of 0-3 the data quality for the Kembata, the case of Lethal Violence is rated a 1. There were a few articles that described the incidents however, some details were lacking and it was unclear if the information was peer reviewed.

Sources

  1. Berhane, S. (2022). Forgotten, south Ethiopian migrants’ endless suffering. The Reporter. Retrieved April 03, 2023 from https://www.thereporterethiopia.com/28635/
  2. Gebre, Y. (2001). Population displacement and food insecurity in ethiopia: Resettlement, settlers, and hosts. University of Florida.
  3. Woldie, Engidu. (2019, January 14). Ethiopia: Dozens killed in ethnic attack in Kaffa zone as over 30,000 people displaced – The Ethiopian Satellite Television and Radio (ESAT). https://ethsat.com/2019/01/ethiopia-dozens-killed-in-ethnic-attack-in-kaffa-zone-as-over-30000-people-displaced/