Uneasy Calm Returns to Ethiopia‘s Capital

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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Uneasy calm returned to Ethiopia‘s capital on Thursday, a day after riot police fired guns to quell protests against Ethiopia‘s disputed parliamentary elections. Police killed at least 23 people and wounded dozens more, hospital doctors and health workers said.

Members of Ethiopia‘s special forces, in armored personnel carriers, regular troops armed with sniper rifles and federal police patrolled the streets Thursday, the first day of calm after two days of protests.

Berhan said demonstrators burned several buses and destroyed four houses, but that calm was returning to the streets of the city of 3 million people later Wednesday. He said the government was "sorry and sad" for the violence, but he blamed it on the main opposition party.

There were reports of a wave of arrests late Wednesday and early Thursday as federal police went from house to house, detaining young men. Diplomats said around 2,000 people had been arrested.

Several editors and publishers had gone into hiding since the government threatened to detain leaders of the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists‘ Association and reporters it accused of being mouthpieces for the main opposition party, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

The violence followed clashes Tuesday between protesters and police that killed eight people and wounded 43 others.