Police in Ethiopia have uncovered a mass grave with at least 200 bodies in a volatile area between the country’s Oromia and Somali regions, according to local media.
The Fana Broadcasting Corporation reported on Thursday that the mass grave was found during a police investigation of a former administrator of the Somali region, Abdi Mohammed Omer.
The court ordered probe was looking to acquire evidence linking Mohammed to human rights abuses and clashes.
Ethiopian police have been given two weeks to unearth the bodies and do forensic tests to try and identify them.
The bodies appear to be related to a series of ethnic clashes carried out by an unofficial militia known as the Liyu that was loyal to the former Somali region leader.
The former administrator was forced to resign in August 2018 and was arrested weeks later after violence broke out in the provincial capital, Jijiga.
The region where the grave was found has been plagued by violence for decades as the Ethiopian government fought the secessionist Ogaden National Liberation Front, before both sides signed a peace deal in October, 2018.
CGTN