Ethiopia has decided to cancel a plan to expand its capital Addis Ababa in the neighboring Oromia state, the country’s largest region, after nearly two months of protests left more than 140 people dead, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The country’s communication minister, Getachew Reda, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that officials in Oromia had agreed to stop the expansion plan and that the federal government will respect their decision.

“If one of the parties to this arrangement withdraws its support, this simply means the project cannot go ahead,” Getachew said, according to Bloomberg.

In December, university students in Ethiopia’s largest regional state, Oromia, clashed with anti-riot police as they protest against a government plan to expand the area of Addis Ababa into Oromia.

The state, which is on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, is inhabited by the Oromo tribe which has long been marginalized by the central government.

The Oromos are Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, comprising about 40 percent of the country’s 93 million people.

The government has accused Oromo protesters of links with “terror groups” and said elites from the ethnic community “who have influence over the population” were stoking the riots.

Despite a government block on local media outlets from broadcasting the news, images of several injured students surfaced on social media, while hundreds of other protesters have reportedly been rounded up in a crackdown on those demonstrating against several state-led development projects.

Last week HRW estimated 140 protesters, most of them students from local universities, have been killed by security forces over the last two months, making the crisis one of the worst in the country’s history.

The government has only confirmed five deaths since the protest broke out in November.