Below is a press release published by: Oromo Press

 It is rare to come across any other nationality groups like the Oromo from the Horn of Africa who are as subjected to overwhelming abuses at home under subjugation and occupation and overseas as refugees with no safe haven. From destructive events developing at unprecedented rate in Oromia and in countries of exile, we can observe that the Oromo people are facing a greater danger to their survival as a group and as individuals from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia, Yemen to Libya, Somaliland to Kenya and everywhere in between. We hear of increasingly darker and gorier circumstances our people find themselves in every passing day.

The recent crackdown in Saudi Arabia on immigrants and refugees from Oromia and Ethiopia and this Qeerroo report on massive rights abuses inside Oromia from 2012-2013 demonstrate just how much fragile, weak and endangered the Oromo species has become everywhere. The suffering is obviously enormous, but the local and global voices conveying these sufferings are tragically dwindled or hijacked. It behooves every concerned Oromo to pause and think: where are we headed as a people? And it is necessary that every Oromo political and economic organization rethinks home-based, Oromia, approaches to preventing the slow extinction of this species from the face of the earth. 

Documenting extreme brutality against Oromian/Ethiopian refugees and immigrants in Saudi Arabia, the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa presents us with 13 confirmed deaths most of whom are expected to be Oromos. Surely the three who were killed brutally were clearly Oromos. The dead are not just numbers coming out of a building somewhere; they are human beings with names, goals, aspirations, families and many other unknown stories just like the rest of us. But, their dreams were cut short in brutal ways they may have never imagined. HRLHA puts the extreme brutality as: 

...the information from the migrants and from the publicly released video confirmed that the three Ethiopians killed were murdered by the brutal action of police. Among the victims was Umere Abdurahiman Ali , 24 an Oromo national from Ethiopia who was gunned down on November 5 [2013]. After the crackdown resumed, more than 10 Ethiopians were killed and thrown into the bush and eaten by hyenas.

These are the number of confirmed deaths. The murders are likely to be higher given the fact that it is commonly reported that people are wantonly taken out of cities and killed out of sight in surrounding deserts. How can they communicate when they are denied access to any type of phone or communication? Denial of access to communication devices is also the main feature of repression behind the closed door at home. 

These developments at home and abroad are worth sharing because we have been following them on social media for a few days now. There have been numerous actual protests around the world and tons of information, hate speeches and misinformation shared on social-media under the untwitterly long and opposing hashtags #SomeOneTellSaudiArabia and #SomeoneTellEthiopia.The hashtags are channels for further escalating conflicts online. 

One would say any opposition against the abusive actions of Saudi Arabia under whatever banner is welcome, minus hate-based nationalism thing. This is not without reservation. I have my doubts about how things are developing online.