The Oromo Students are high on the agenda of Meles´s genocide policy perpetrated against the Oromo. The government encountered several peaceful student demonstrations with brutal shootings, mass arrests, torture, expulsion from academic institutes etc. The following barbaric performances of Meles Zenawi´s regime are a few we mention with respect to Oromo students.

Student Sime Terefe, who was for his higher education to Mekele University, Tigray, was killed there by the Tigryan security forces. Actually, Sime being at the heart of Tigray Capital, Mekele, with long way away from his birth place and his nation has no any means to conduct any threatening act against TPLF regime or Tigrayn people.

In 2002, several students were shot dead by the state militias in several parts of Oromia. Amnesty International reports verify the following shot deadin Shambu and Ambo (see AI Index: AFR 25/010/2002 and 25/014/2002 ) namely: Assefa Fekadu, Bayisa Babisa, Belay Bayisa, Itefa Dirra, and 11 others suffered bullet injury and Fikiru Negasa was amputated as a consequence.This report confirms that Girma Beyene was shot dead by the security force in Ambo.

In March 2004 student Abraham Adamu Alemayehu was shot at Haromayaa University, in Eastern Oromia and was brought to Black Lion Hospital in Finfinne (Addis Ababa) if one could rescue his life.

Generally, since 2000 more than 20 Oromo students have been killed by the TPLF security and military forces on various occasions of the peaceful demonstrations. Significant numbers have been injured; flee from their home country, dismissed from schools and Universities. Some are still detained and others sentenced by TPLF court for long years of imprisonment.

Currently, the Union of Oromo Students in Europe received that the TPLF government instigated another ethnic clash between ethnic Amhara students and Oromo students on the campus in Baher Da. According to our source, more than 20 Oromo Students and some non-Oromo students who sympathised with the Oromo students are beaten and imprisoned by the government. We know from long experience that prisoners in Ethiopia are inhumanely treated in prisons and get no treatment for sustained injuries. Further, it is a long tradition of all Amhara-Tigre regimes to deny prisoners proper accesses to water and food. So, we believe that these students far away from their relatives and friends are bleeding and starving.

The Union of Oromo Students in Europe condemns the barbaric acts of Meles-led TPLF regime in Ethiopia and demands the unconditional release of these students.

Further, the Union appeals:

1) to democratic governments and Human Rights Organisations to demand the unconditional release of these students;

2) to ICRC and The Red Cross in Ethiopia to visit these students and stand by them.

The Union of Oromo Students in Europe, May 12, 2005