At least 53 people died in western Ethiopia after an unidentified armed group attacked a civilian convoy and its military escort in a region plagued by ethnic violence.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said, twenty soldiers and three civilians were killed in the ambush, while 30 attackers died during the day-long gun battle that followed.

It said eleven more people were killed the following day – including one who was burned alive – as security forces rounded up suspects and carried out summary killings.

The commission investigated the incident after a video posted on social media on Friday showed armed men, some in military uniforms, using a stick to poke a man back onto a burning pile of bodies after he tried to escape. The government said it would act against the perpetrators.