Gunmen killed more than 100 people in a dawn attack in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia on Wednesday, the human rights commission said, as residents described fleeing the latest deadly assault in an area bedeviled by ethnic violence, CNN reported.

The attack occurred in the village of Bekoji in Bulen county in the Metekel zone, the state-run Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said in a statement, an area where multiple ethnic groups are living.

Africa's second-most populous nation has been grappling with regular outbreaks of deadly violence since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was appointed in 2018 and accelerated democratic reforms that loosened the state's iron grip on regional rivalries.

Elections due next year have further inflamed simmering tensions over land, power and resources.

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Thursday he had deployed forces to the western Benishangul-Gumuz region.

"The massacre of civilians in Benishangul-Gumuz region is very tragic," Abiy said on Twitter. "The government, to solve the root causes of the problem, has deployed a necessary force.