Ethiopia began three days of national mourning on Tuesday, with joint Christian and Muslim prayers for more than 20 Ethiopian Christians killed by ISIL militants in Libya

Ethiopia began three days of national mourning on Tuesday, with joint Christian and Muslim prayers for more than 20 Ethiopian Christians killed by ISIL militants in Libya.
  
The murders have horrified Ethiopians and sparked global condemnation, including from Pope Francis who expressed "great distress and sadness" over the murders. "They are animals, they are outside of all humanity," said Tesfaye Wolde, who saw his brother Balcha Belete executed on a video released by the militants. "I saw him kneeling, a masked man pointing a gun to my brother and his friend, with a knife to their throats."
  
"We have a duty to raise our voice to tell the world that the killing of the innocent like animals is completely unacceptable," said Abune Mathias, the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. "Their actions are repugnant."
  
Joint prayers were held along with Muslim leaders, led by Sheikh Mohammed Jemal, head of Ethiopia's Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, who said the killing of people like "chickens" had no place in Islam.
  
The ISIL video, released on Sunday, showed militants in Libya holding captives who they described as "followers of the cross from the enemy Ethiopian Church."
  
A masked fighter in black brandishing a pistol makes a statement threatening Christians if they do not convert to Islam. The video shows one group of about 12 men being beheaded on a beach and another group of at least 16 being shot in the head in a desert area.
  
"If ISIL were religious, they would never have killed human beings," said Kedir Hussein, a Muslim who attended the joint prayers, adding "the death of these young people is like someone was killed in my family."