The threat of a new civil war looms over Ethiopia. The fierce clashes between the Ethiopian Government and the Fano militias, which broke out on August 2 in the Amhara region, in the north-west of the country, and which trapped a group of Spanish tourists, draw a new armed conflict in country, just nine months after the end of a devastating war in the neighboring Tigre region.
Far from remaining calm, which Ethiopian authorities said was restored last week after retaking by force several key cities in the region, the clashes have spread to other smaller towns in recent days. At least 26 people were killed and 55 injured in a drone attack on a central square in Finote Selam on Sunday, local hospital workers and other witnesses told international agencies. The Government has not confirmed the information.
The attack was aimed at a truck carrying Fano militiamen, which was parked in a central square in the city, but the blast came 20 minutes late and the vehicle was no longer there, witnesses told the Amharic edition of the bbc According to the doctors, many of the victims were wearing civilian clothes: “The victims ranged from 13-year-old children to the elderly.”
A large number of the injured suffered amputations and about 40 were in critical condition, so hospital sources estimated a higher number of casualties. From the center, the hospital lamented the lack of resources to deal with the slaughter due to a historical precariousness, but which has been aggravated by the road closure.
Hours after the attack, on Monday afternoon the Ethiopian army wrested control of the city from the Fano, located 170 kilometers south of Bahir Dar, the regional capital.
“While intense fighting has subsided in the main urban areas since August 9, it continues in other parts of the region,” the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) reported on Monday ), an independent public institution. These battles are marked by “the use of heavy artillery, with the result of civilian deaths and injuries, as well as material damage”, adds the organization, which expresses its “serious concern”.
The Fano revolt, which means volunteer guerrillas, rose against the Ethiopian army at the beginning of the month, but the situation had been heated since April, when the Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Abiy Ahmed, announced the integration of the special forces (paramilitary groups linked to the regional government).
The gesture did not sit well with the Amharas, as both the Fano and the special forces had fought alongside the military against the People’s Liberation Front of Tigre (FLPT) during the war between 2020 and 2022. They refused to surrender weapons, because they considered that this would leave them defenseless against the hostilities of the Oromo and Tigre rebels, their neighbors to the east and north, respectively.
Far from joining the army as Abiy ordered, many of the special forces fighters have defected to join the Fano. The rebels represent the discontent of the Amhara, the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia (25% of Ethiopians), who feel forgotten and unprotected by the state. In June and July there were two attacks in the Oromia region, which resulted in the slaughter of more than 300 men, women and children of Amhara ethnicity, a minority in this Oromo-majority region. The passivity of the federal forces deployed in the territory fueled the theory that the Government was behind the operation.
Given the events of the past two weeks, the Fano militias have gained strength, although they lack a unified command structure. They attacked army bases, took control of important cities such as Lalibela (where they took the airport), Bahir Dar, Gondar or Debre Birhan; they stormed police stations and a prison in the regional capital and freed thousands of fellow militiamen.
The impossibility of accessing the region makes it difficult to know the magnitude of the conflict, but during the first days alone at least 30 fights had been recorded. This led the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on August 4, which was finally approved by Parliament on Monday.
The EHRC has reported cases of protesters being killed while trying to block roads, as well as arrests and extrajudicial executions. In the capital, Addis Ababa, “there have been massive arrests of civilians of Amhara ethnic origin”, the institution underlines, including Christian Tadele, opposition deputy and open critic of the Government and its actions in the region from Amhara. The campaign recalls the persecution that the Tigre citizens suffered at the beginning of the conflict that lasted 20 months.
Likewise, the human rights organization regrets not having access to the region due to the state of emergency.
The United States and other countries have called on all parties to resolve the crisis “in a peaceful manner” in a joint statement. Ethiopia, a vast country that has long been considered a security linchpin in the Horn of Africa, is suffering from multiple crises: drought, the aftermath of the war in Tigre, the recent arrival of refugees from Sudan and , now, a conflict that the Amharic Association of America has described as “a genocidal war” against Amharic Ethiopians.
