Burayu (; ) is a city and special census zone in the

Oromia Region Oromia (, ) is a Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia and the homeland of the Oromo people. Under Article 49 of 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia, Ethiopian Constitution, the capital of Oromia is Addis Ababa, also called Finfinne. The ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

, located directly adjacent to the national capital city

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

(known as ''Finfinne'' in Oromo). With the rapid growth of the capital in recent decades and

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted ...

, the town has faced considerable economic and demographic pressures. The city's population has grown from merely 10,000 people in 1994 to an estimated 130,000 people three decades later; consisting of migrants from the rural south of Ethiopia looking for work along with former residents of Addis Ababa who sought cheaper housing in the surburbs. In 2018, a massacre occurred amid communal clashes with individuals from the Oromo and Dorze ethnicities fighting in and around Burayu, in which 55 people were killed. On 19 January 2022, during the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian religious festival Timkat, Oromia police shot into a crowd of Ethiopian Orthodox

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

ioners of the Saint Mary Church at Burayu. The security forces of Oromia killed two believers and several people were injured, including elderly, women and children. This incident was said to have happened because of the flag that the parishioners used, a green, yellow and red flag with the Ethiopian Orthodox logo over it.

Demographics

Based on the 2007 Census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), this Zone has a total population of 63,889, of whom 31,516 are men and 32,373 are women; 48,876 people or 76.5% were urban inhabitants, while the rest were rural inhabitants. The four largest ethnic groups reported were the Oromo (58.07%), the Amhara (21.00%), the Gurage (9.12%), and the Gamo people (6.16%); all other ethnic groups made up 5.65% of the population. Oromo was spoken as a first language by 53.79%,

Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...

was spoken by 30.68%, Gurage was spoken by 6.73% of the population, and Gamo was spoken by 6.04%; the remaining 2.76% spoke all other primary languages reported. The majority of the inhabitants practiced

Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...

, comprising 72.38% of the population, while 13.87% of the population were

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

, and 12.58% of the population were

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

.INTRODUCTION CHAPTER TWO
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References

Populated places in the Oromia Cities and towns in Ethiopia {{Oromia-geo-stub