A local Islamic organisation stated on Wednesday that more than 20 people were killed in an attack on Muslims in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar during the funeral of a Muslim senior.

The attack on a cemetery on Tuesday was described by the Islamic Affairs Council of Amhara, the region where Gondar is located, as a “massacre” by heavily armed “extreme Christians.”

The attackers “launched a volley of powerful machine guns and grenades,” according to the religious authority, “leaving many dead and others who were injured being transported to hospital.”

“More than 20 people were killed in yesterday’s violence, which also resulted in the theft of Muslim properties,” the statement continued.

The “attack was carried out by a few radical persons,” Gondar Mayor Zewdu Malede told Ethiopian national television EBC.

“There has been some destruction and loss of lives from all sides,” he said, without elaborating on the assailants’ or victims’ identities.

“By 7:00 p.m., the situation had been brought under control.”

Amhara regional government officials could not be reached, and Gondar police declined to comment.

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The cemetery where the incident took place has been the site of a long-running feud between Muslims and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, who make up the bulk of the country’s population.

The Islamic Affairs Council said in a statement that “despite continued wide-ranging measures to invade the… cemetery, the location has historically remained a Muslim graveyard at all times.”

The attackers, according to the city’s mayor, were fanatics who wanted to “burn down, demolish, destabilise, and pillage Gondar.”

He went on to say, “This in no way represents the Muslim and Christian communities.”

Muslims make up around a third of Ethiopia’s 110 million people and are a small minority in Amhara, the country’s second-most populated region, where Orthodox Christians predominate.

Multiple mosques were attacked in the Amhara town of Mota in 2019, more than 350 kilometres (217 miles) north of Addis Ababa, in a wave of religious violence that drew Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s censure.

Conflicts that appear to be rooted in religion in Ethiopia are frequently driven by disputes over land usage, ethnicity, and other concerns, according to analysts.