ESAT News Sep 29 2014
Dozens of peaceful protesters, who descended on the Ethiopian Embassy, located in North West Washington D.C., to protest recent massacres in Ogaden region, Gambela regions, and the overall worsening human rights violations by the TPLF/EPRDF regime in Ethiopia were met with gunshots in the embassy compound. U.S. Secret Service announced earlier today that it had detained a man in connection with the shooting incident.
Embassy insiders named the shooter as Solomon Woyin, who is said to be a security head at the Ethiopian embassy. The man is said to be a member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the core and dominant of the ruling ethnic parties, the EPRDF.
While Shimelis Terefe, a D.C-based activist, was trying to hoist the widely popular Ethiopian flag that does not bear the emblem of the TPLF/EPRDF regime, Solomon Woyin started shooting without any warning. When the protesters confronted him and demanded him to put down his gun, he fired more shots threatening to kill them. According to the protesters, at least three shots were fired and a car parked nearby was hit by a bullet.
Yohaness Gurmu, one of the protesters, described the scene as chaotic when the unarmed protesters boldly confronted the security chief. “The man continued brandishing his gun and shooting towards us. But we did not disperse in fear even if he was threatening to kill us.”
Ambassador Girma Birru and a few embassy staff members reportedly came rushing and took the shooter inside the embassy building. But U.S. Secret Service agents and DC police reportedly arrived on the scene within a few minutes. State Department officials were also said to be on scene to investigate the incident.
Inside the lobby of the Embassy, the activists, who were holding pictures of political prisoners, jailed journalists and bloggers, repeatedly chanted “freedom! Freedom! Freedom.”
U.S. Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said in a statement emailed to reporters that the agency investigated a report of shots fired around 12:15 p.m. Monday. “They detained a man believed to be the shooter,” he said.