BY AARON MAASHO
ADDIS ABABA — Hundreds of grieving relatives gathered outside the homes of two Ethiopians who were among dozens shown being shot and beheaded in a video purportedly made by Islamic State militants in Libya, struggling to make sense of their loved ones’ fate.
Only two of the 30 Ethiopian Christian prisoners displayed being killed in two groups by masked jihadists in a video released over the weekend have been identified by name.
The pair were close friends who grew up as neighbors in the impoverished Cherkos district of the capital Addis Ababa.
“My son is gone. I cannot bear it. I am burning,” a sobbing Ahaza Kasaye, mother of Eyasu Yekuno-Amlak, said at the gathering of family members on Tuesday.
Eyasu’s dreadlocks enabled his family and friends to quickly recognize him in a group of prisoners seen in the video trudging along a beach in orange jump suits before their captors beheaded them as they knelt on the ground.
Though the bodies of the prisoners have not been returned or recovered, mourners erected a tent and a priest delivered a sermon. Wailing mourners held aloft pictures of both victims.
Dozens of others – young men who were both neighbors and friends of the two men – briefly took to the streets and demonstrated in Addis Ababa’s main square before being dispersed by police.
Across town, Ethiopia’s House of Representatives opened an emergency session with a minute’s silence, before voting to observe three days of national mourning and fly the Ethiopian flag at half mast from Wednesday.
Read more at Reuters.com »
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