Dead bodies of seven teenagers have been found in St Joseph Church in the eastern Oromia region of Ethiopia, Premium Times newspaper has reported.
Spokesperson of the East Shewa Zone police station, Aschalew Alemu, who disclosed this on Monday, said the bodies were found in the church at about 3am on Easter Sunday.
Ethiopia has the largest Orthodox Christian population after Europe. It marked Easter on April 19.
He said the deceased were six males and one female, all under the age of 20.
Alemu said, “The teenagers were inside a room at the St Joseph Church which housed a generator.’’
“We are now investigating if suffocation from the generator is the cause of the death.’’
He said already 11 people had been arrested in connection with the deaths.
It is not clear how the teenagers got into the church since Ethiopia imposed a state-of-emergency regulations following the outbreak of COVID-19.
One of the regulations prohibits worshippers from attending large services in order to curtail the spread of the virus.
