The unrest began on Tuesday when opposition supporters protested over the results of the May general elections won by the ruling EPRDF party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and which the opposition claim were fraudulent. Violent clashes ensued between the protestors and riot police, leaving over 40 people dead.
Demonstrators in other cities came out on Saturday to protest the deaths and the arrest of some 3,000, including the leadership and supporters of the main opposition party, in Addis Ababa.
More people were seen on the streets of the capital on Saturday, but shops and businesses remained closed for the fifth day. City bus services had resumed and more vehicles were on the roads, but the streets continued to be semi-deserted.
Reports from Arba Minch, some 500 km south of Addis Ababa, said police opened fire early Saturday to disperse thousands of demonstrators, mainly students of the Water Technology University and secondary schools there.
Reports of disturbances also came from Dilla, Yirgalem and other cities in South Region where college and secondary school students staged demonstrations Saturday against the authorities for the heavy handed treatment meted out on the leaders and supporters of the opposition, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy party (CUDP).
Reports of violence outside the Ethiopian capital came in the wake of the declaration on Friday night by Prime Minister Zenawi that the disturbances in the country have been fully contained.
Zenawi claimed that the latest wave of violence over the allegedly fraudulent parliamentary elections “are now over and successfully dealt with.”
