More than 60 Christians are killed in attacks on villages in Ethiopia's Oromia region

The attackers came at dawn on Saturday, at the hour when the men who had kept watch through the night in the villages of Shirka district had gone home to rest.

Residents told BBC Amharic that gunmen surrounded the farming communities in the Arsi zone of Ethiopia's Oromia region from all four directions. "We were completely unprepared and had no prior knowledge. They surrounded us from all four directions," said one man whose 75 year old father was killed. Five of the dead in Shirka were children. A church official called the killings a massacre and said security forces reached the area but could not stop the assault. Local accounts said the dead were buried together in a single grave at St. Raphael Church in Chole. Survivors have sheltered in nearby churches. "We are deeply shocked by these tragic killings and are appealing to the government to intervene and restore security," a local deacon told AFP.

The Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church laid out the count in a statement on Monday. Gunmen killed 14 people at Gora Silingo in Merti district on October 20, and 46 people at Chole and Birbo on October 24. The two attacks together killed more than 60 people, with about 20 people badly hurt and 20 houses burned to the ground, as of October 27. Residents and the conflict monitoring group ACLED gave AFP a lower count for Shirka alone, at least 43 killed and 18 wounded, and the full toll remains unsettled.

No group has claimed the attacks. A local official blamed the Alliance for Survival, a newly formed rebel coalition that includes the Oromo Liberation Army. The army has not commented on these raids and has denied carrying out similar attacks before. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has accused the group in the past of targeting civilians and religious sites to unsettle the country. The group says it fights for Oromo rights. The regional government said it will take action against those responsible.

The church said attacks on Christians in the area have been increasing and that it has raised the danger with authorities at every level of government, in its words with no solution so far. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council reported in July that attackers had killed 458 people in that area over the previous four years. Many families in Shirka have now left their homes, and the villages that buried their dead on Saturday are waiting to learn whether the state can protect them better than it did at dawn.