The EHRC says residents of Mender 20 and Mender 21 villages in Hawa Gelan in Oromia’s Kellem Wollega zone are “predominantly of Amhara ethnic origin” and that residents are hiding elsewhere despite security forces arriving in the area. “Team Shene [another name for the OLA]fleeing the security forces, he threatens civilians in its western part [Wollega]. In the Oromia area, civilians [Kellem Wollega] they were slaughtered. We mourn the loss of our citizens,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed tweeted on Monday. “We will pursue this terrorist group to the end and eliminate it together with our people,” he added. The OLA denied the charges and blamed government militias for the apparent massacre. “Two divisions of the ENDF (Ethiopian National Defense Force) together with allied forces occupy the towns [Kellem Wollega], including Machaara where civilians were killed en masse by regime militias as security forces did nothing. The regime thinks it can just point fingers and escape accountability,” tweeted Odaa Tarbii, OLA spokesperson on Monday in response to Abiy’s statement. This attack comes less than three weeks after at least 200 civilians were reportedly killed in the Oromia region by OLA forces, according to the EHRC. The OLA denied these accusations and blamed government forces for the massacre. OLA, which aligned with Tigrayan forces against the federal government last year, was designated by the Ethiopian government as a terrorist organization in 2021. The group has often been accused of attacking civilians and targeting ethnic Amharas. The attacks come amid rising ethnic tensions across the country in recent years. “The continued insecurity in the area and what appears to be the ethnically targeted killing of residents must stop immediately,” said EHRC Chief Commissioner Dr. Daniel Bekele, who reiterated the EHRC’s call for an urgent increase in government security forces to prevent further civilian deaths in the region. An earlier version of this story refers to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. This has been fixed. CNN’s Bethlehem Feleke contributed to this report