[4] Since 2016, Ethiopia had been gripped by repeated waves of unrest and protest against the ruling Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front, despite the EPRDF's victory in 2015 general elections (in which it and its allies won all seats in the lower house of parliament), which were not considered credible by international observers.

[6][7] Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn resigned in April 2018 and was replaced by Abiy Ahmed from Oromo ethnicity, a relative unknown who had previously been Deputy President of the Oromia Region.

Hassan Ibrahim, a trader, told Reuters that "mobs of ethnic Oromo youth then marched here in Ashwa Meda [a neighborhood in Burayu] and attacked our homes and looted businesses chanting 'leave our land'".

[29] In Arba Minch, condemnatory protests nearly turned violent as angry youths sought to stage reprisals against Oromo-owned businesses there, before elders intervened and succeeded in calming the mob.

[32] Individuals sympathetic to Oromo ethno-nationalists engaged in revisionism or denialism regarding the attacks, claiming that Oromos had in fact been the targets or that they were in some way a premeditated false flag operation; Birhanemeskel Abebe Segni, Ethiopian Consul-General in Los Angeles, disseminated a document he claimed showed Ginbot 7 applying for a permit for a demonstration protesting the attacks the day before they had taken place, a charge a Ginbot 7 spokesperson denounced as a "recklessly cynical conspiracy theory".

[33] Entertainer and activist Tamagn Beyene organized a relief appeal for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Ethiopians (GARE) that raised 13 million birr (US$425,000) for the benefit of those who fled their homes.