• Police accused Workineh of selling cigarettes – a claim he denied.

A 26-year-old Ethiopian national died in a hospital on Monday after allegedly being beaten by police while he was at his shop in Tembisa, a township northeast of Johannesburg, according to members of the Ethiopian community in South Africa.

The man identified as Workineh Degu Woldemichael, known by his nickname Abdi, was tending a shop in Tembisa, owned by another fellow countryman, Girma Abegaz, when police officers and soldiers visited him on Saturday, witnesses said. The officers reportedly accused the shopkeeper of selling cigarettes, despite the sales ban.”They started searching for the items, saying they came after receiving tip-offs. However, they could not find any,” Misganu Detmo, a close friend who was on the spot, told Ethiopia Observer by Skype. “They also searched in his bedroom, which was close by. They looked everywhere, even tearing down the ceiling. But they found nothing,” he added.

All the same, the police officers beat the victim up badly, who was left in a critical state, Girma Abegaz, the owner of the shop said. “They took out a cold fresh drink from the fridge and poured it on his eyes. One of them, a female soldier started beating him hard,” he stated. “When I and the landlord started to protest and inquired why they were doing that, they came out and left,” he said. By then, Workineh was hurting and aching, he said. “We tried to treat him by ourselves but to no avail. When we brought him to a hospital on the morrow, we were told that his stomach was already damaged as a result of the assault, according to Girma. He died a day later on Monday morning.

The sale of tobacco products, including cigarettes, has been prohibited since South Africa first introduced a coronavirus lockdown on 27 March.

Gezahegn, a Johannesburg-based community leader and a media activist who runs the Kembata World Wide Media Network said the killing has caused outrage against discrimination and police treatment of Ethiopian refugees in South Africa. Another harrowing death was reported in mid-July when Adane Emmanuel, an Ethiopian national, was allegedly beaten by police with a bolt cutter before being handcuffed and thrown into the back of a van that was then driven over speed bumps at high speed for over an hour. Protests were planned by the Ethiopian community but were banned because of the coronavirus outbreak, according to Gezahegn.