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

“They are animals, they are outside of all humanity,” said Tesfaye Wolde, who saw his only 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.”

Abune Mathias, the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, called the killings “repugnant”.

“We have a duty to raise our voice to tell the world that the killing of the innocent like animals is completely unacceptable,” he said.

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 IS video released on Sunday, showed militants in Libya holding captives who they described as “followers of the cross from the enemy Ethiopian Church”.

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