Reports have emerged of the murder of six Christians by 300 armed Islamists during a midnight worship service. According to the US human rights group International Christian Concern, a mob armed with guns and knives surrounded the locked Orthodox church in Beshasha, Ethiopia, on 14 October, and poured petrol on it, forcing worshippers outside. The mob attacked them, killing six people and severely wounding 15 others.

Earlier in the month riots between Christians and Muslims claimed the lives of between 15 and 31 people and left thousands homeless.

The Dutch religious paper Reformatorisch Dagblad reported that Islamic fundamentalists burned a Catholic church, an Orthodox church and three evangelical churches.

Religious tensions have worsened since the militia leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed in neighbouring Somalia declared jihad on Ethiopia, a majority Orthodox Christian nation, on 9 October.