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September 7, 2021
In recent days, Ethiopian officials have said TPLF fighters recently crossed from Sudan to Ethiopia carrying IDs issued by the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
"The TPLF has tried to expand the conflict by entering Benishangul Gumuz and Amhara regions crossing the long Sudanese border," Ethiopia's foreign ministry said late Monday.
"All of its attempts in these areas have proven futile but new evidence has come to the surface. Some TPLF soldiers infiltrating from the Sudanese side, have been captured carrying UNHCR ID cards."
A UN official told AFP Tuesday that UNHCR was aware of reports alleging Ethiopian refugees registered in Sudan were now involved in the conflict but said the agency was "not in a position to verify" them.
"Since the onset of the refuge influx, measures were put in place at border entry points and all identified armed elements seeking refuge have been disarmed and separated from the civilian population," the official said.
September 3, 2021
As they bring war to other parts of Ethiopia, resurgent Tigray fighters face growing allegations that they are retaliating for the abuses their people suffered back home.
In interviews with The Associated Press, more than a dozen witnesses offered the most widespread descriptions yet of Tigray forces striking communities and a religious site with artillery, killing civilians, looting health centers and schools and sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing in the past two months.
In the town of Nefas Mewucha in the Amhara region, a hospital’s medical equipment was smashed. The fighters looted medicines and other supplies, leaving more than a dozen patients to die.
“It is a lie that they are not targeting civilians and infrastructures,” hospital manager Birhanu Mulu told the AP. He said his team had to transfer some 400 patients elsewhere for care. “Everyone can come and witness the destruction that they caused.”
September 2, 2021
After nine months of war, Ethiopia’s war may be entering its most dangerous and critical phase yet. What started as a dispute between the central government and a regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), has widened into a civil war that has unleashed a humanitarian disaster and left hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine. Earlier this week, the TPLF said it was open to a "negotiated end" to the conflict but rejected a plan to appoint an African Union moderator, just one of many roadblocks to getting the two sides to the negotiating table. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last month issued a call to arms for all capable citizens, urging them to join the army to suppress the resurgent Tigrayan rebellion “once and for all.” TPLF-allied forces have now crossed into the neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions and have even vowed to march on the capital Addis Ababa if a government blockade on the Tigray region is not lifted.
September 1, 2021
In an interview with Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) that was aired yesterday, Sean Jones, the USAID mission Director to Ethiopia, accused forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of looting food aid and causing intentional damage to its warehouses in Amhara regional state.
The director explained circumstances where the food aid delivered to Tigray regions might have fallen into the hands of TPLF. But defended his organization against government accusations that it was complicit in it. “In armed conflict, there are ways where armed groups get food and non food items from humanitarian actors,” he said, “we know that we haven’t delivered any high energy biscuits since February.”
August 31, 2021
The conflict that has spread across five woredas (districts) of the North Shewa Zone of the Amhara region in March displaced 246,000 people, according to the Zone Disaster Prevention and Food Security Programme Coordination Office.
“The conflict has its toll on women and children,” says Selamawit Eshetu, head of the woreda Women and Children Affairs Office. “We are trying our best to help them not only with their daily needs but also, by providing psychosocial support.”
Mulu Admasu, a mother of three girls, says that she worries about her children’s future. She was forced to leave behind a farm full of produce. “We were self-sufficient, my husband is a hard-working farmer. We produced peanuts, sorghum teff and mung bean. All that is gone,” she says.
“I sometimes find it hard to explain this situation to my children. Especially to my youngest child who is only 6. Every time she hears a loud sound, she thinks it is a gunshot.” Her two older daughters quit school because of the conflict.
August 28, 2021
Following TPLF’s recent incursion into the Amhara and Afar regional states, the number of people affected by the conflict has reached 4.5 million and more than 500,000 have also been displaced, the Office of the Prime Minister (PMO) revealed on Thursday, August 26, 2021.
In a weekly press conference, the Press Secretary for the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Billene Seyoum told both local and international reporters that the number of displaced people from the two regions has surpassed half a million. She also highlighted the need for urgent humanitarian assistance.
Emergency Incident Posts, together with the National Coordination Center and Regional Coordination Committee, established in the Amhara and Afar regions are working closely with the federal government to facilitate smooth humanitarian access.
According to Billene, thus far, the government has distributed 4800 quintals of food for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Afar. Additionally, the Word Food Program (WFP) has allocated three rounds of food distribution to the Afar region, the first of which is already underway.
August 27, 2021
The nation of Ethiopia is facing growing ethnic and political tensions in several parts of the country. Thus, with the deaths of over 200 people being reported in the last week after ethnic bloodshed broke out between the Amhara and Oromo, the crisis is spiraling in Ethiopia.
Renewed violence between both ethnic groups followed the alleged massacre of the Amhara by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). Ethiopia deems the OLA to be a terrorist group. However, according to the OLA, they are fighting an insurgency against the government of Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says that people on the ground confirm that the OLA killed approximately 150 people. This took place after Ethiopia withdrew its military forces from Gida-Kirimu.
August 25, 2021
After seizing the farming village in northern Ethiopia, the rebels roamed the streets searching for young, able-bodied men who had fought alongside government forces.
Anyone with a militia ID was a suspect. So were men with marks on their shoulders left by rifle straps, even though it is common for farmers in Ethiopia's Amhara region -- militia fighters or not -- to carry Kalashnikovs.
Before the day was over, the rebels had fatally shot two men in their homes and marched a third to a nearby river where they fired rounds into his back, according to 49-year-old Adisse Wonde, who told AFP he buried all three.
August 17, 2021
The original underdogs of Ethiopia’s civil war may have committed war crimes as they advance towards the capital, Addis Ababa, an investigation by The Telegraph has found.
An investigation found that rebel forces systematically destroyed farming communities and indiscriminately shelled civilian areas in a series of horrific revenge attacks in Ethiopia’s Amhara region.
“They are out for revenge and will gladly attack civilian areas,” said Amir Gezahegn, who is one of about 200,000 ethnic Amhara Ethiopians who have been displaced by recent fighting. “It wasn’t even safe in our homes, they used artillery against entire neighbourhoods.”
August 16, 2021
The Amhara Regional Communication Bureau released a press briefing on current affairs mainly focusing on TPLF and the ongoing conflict in the Amhara region.
Gizachew Muluneh the head of Amhara regional communication bureau briefed local reporters that the regional government was currently engaged in fighting with forces loyal to Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF) who he described as aggressors.
In the briefing Gizachew accused TPLF for collaborating with what he described as internal enemies like the Oromo Liberation Army (Often referred by government officials as OLF/ Shane), Benishangul Liberation Front and ‘external enemies’ to wreak havoc in the Amhara region.
August 13, 2021
Weeks after Ethiopia declared unilateral ceasefire in its northern region of Tigray, it is calling for its citizens to take arms and join the ranks of its defence forces and militias to help end the belated success of the resurgent Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF).
The Ethiopian government had said the reason for the ceasefire was conditional: to allow farmers to farm where – according to the United Nations – more than 90% of the population is in need of emergency food aid and where – according to the United States – a million people are facing famine.
August 11, 2021
Dessie City Administration in a statement shared on its communication bureau official Facebook page, announced that it has prepared temporary shelters for internally displaced people (IDP) in relation to the ongoing conflict in Tigray.
The statement said that the preparation of four temporary IDPs shelters were prepared. These include Kidame Gebeya General High School which was designated as station 01 to accommodate IDPs coming from Woldia and Gubalafto areas, it also said that Daudo General Primary School was prepared to be station 02 and is expected to accommodate refugees from Bala, Raya Alamata and Korem areas.
“UNICEF is extremely alarmed by the reported killing of over 200 people, including more than 100 children, in attacks on displaced families sheltering at a health facility and a school in Afar region on Thursday, 5 August. Crucial food supplies were also reportedly destroyed in an area that is already seeing emergency levels of malnutrition and food insecurity.
Four million people are in crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity in Tigray and adjoining regions of Afar and Amhara. More than 100,000 have been newly displaced by the recent fighting, adding to the 2 million people already uprooted from their homes.
August 9, 2021
August 7, 2021
On any given day, we could find ourselves swatting down some trifling innuendo without getting bent out of shape over it, but, occasionally, what comes down the pike is such a sinister meshwork of blatant fabrications, laced with half-truths, which makes us out to be shape-shifting monsters, and try as we might, we cannot put it to rest.
One such narrative, centuries in the making, has snowballed into an all-purpose charge, featuring the Amhara/Abyssinian people, as an evil bunch behind every calamity—except, perhaps, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Ethiopia is suffering. It has become a large community of pain. A dizzying daily multiplication of death and violence in various parts of the country, an all-out war and mass starvation in Tigray, a disquieting feeling of a society at war with itself, describes our current situation. The war continues to spread across the country.
Mistrust between communities, fear, insecurity, hopelessness, a crushing inflation, a sense of a deteriorating future, and a constantly declining social world, define the mood of our times. This situation, coupled with political and social tensions, has been slowly building up since 2014.
The months-long conflict in Ethiopia faces a fresh wave of fighting as an Amhara regional official says Amhara forces will launch an offensive on Saturday against Tigrayan forces who have entered the region and taken control of a town hosting a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“This is the time for the Amhara people to crush the terrorist group,” Sema Tiruneh, the Amhara region’s head of peace and security, told the regional state-affiliated Amhara Media Corporation on Friday.
“Preparations have been under way to reverse these moves and an offensive will start tomorrow. Freedom doesn’t come cheap. Everyone should come forward and defend themselves.”
August 5, 2021
August 3, 2021
Rebels from Ethiopia's war-hit Tigray region on Thursday seized Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the neighbouring Amhara region famed for its 12th-century rock-hewn churches, residents told AFP.
The development came as a senior Amhara official told AFP the rebels, known as the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), were pushing "deep" into Amhara territory and hinted at possible retaliation.
"I believe now, enough is enough. Because the TPLF is no more in Tigray. TPLF is moving deep into Amhara territories," said Amhara deputy president Fanta Mandefro.
"We need to defend our people," he added.
Tigrayan forces pushing south and west into the neighbouring Amhara region have displaced 200,000 people there, Griffiths said, and 54,000 in Afar region to the east. The war erupted eight months ago between Ethiopia's central government and the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). Amhara's spokesperson Gizachew Muluneh confirmed the number of displaced people in Amhara.
August 3, 2021
Welkait has always been one of the most strategic geopolitical hotspots in Ethiopia. More recently, it has become the defining point for the Amhara people, whose identity was erased from the area, and with it, Ethiopia’s territorial integrity. Welkait is the generic name commonly used to refer to a large area in the north-western corner of Ethiopia, which includes the territories of Welkait, Tegede, Telemt, and Humera, which borders Sudan in the west. Welkait, which has been part of the Gondar province historically, is separated from Tigray province by a geographic boundary, the Tekeze river.
July 30, 2021
The administrative boundary, historical geography, social & population history of Wolkait, Tegede, Telemt and Humera provinces of Ethiopia, from ancient times to the 1990s, had never been controversial or a matter of debate. Anyone interested in the administrative boundary, historical geography, social & population history of Wolkait, Tegede, Telemt and Humera provinces of the area can read the well documented The Wolkait Affairs book that includes more than 700 primary and secondary sources, from archives in and outside of Ethiopia.
July 20, 2021
The northern towns of Kobo and Woldiya are reportedly receiving large numbers of IDPs. Thousands of locals have fled the area following the takeover of Korem, Alamata, Waja and Tumuga by the self-proclaimed Tigrayan forces in Robit, Gobio, Aradum, Woldiya and other towns in North Wollo Kobo to Dessie, as well as in Addis Wollo, Rama and Zobel in North Wollo. Commentators say Golesha, Jemdo Mariam and other rural towns have fled.
July 19th, 2021
Following the withdrawal of the army, thousands of Abergele residents are reported to have fled to Sekota and neighboring Zukula and Sekota woredas, the capital of the Wag Hmra Nationality Administration Zone. Commentators told VOA by telephone that they were forced to walk 67 km from the town of Abergele to Sekota. One commentator said that they had a difficult three-day journey to reach Niroq Sekota. "When we left the area during the day, our resources were looted and the grain was destroyed," the commenters said.
July 16, 2021
One thing that has been most incomprehensible for many Ethiopian observers, activists, and politicians is the barrage of one-sided criticisms coming from Western capitals since the eruption in November of an armed conflict between the federal government and the TPLF’s controlled northern region of Tigray.
July 17th, 2021
Amharas in Maikadra say they are still traumatised, eight months after one of the worst massacres in the northern region of Ethiopia. Hundreds of young ethnic Amhara men were killed by fleeing Tigrayan fighters. Tigrayans who escaped to Sudan accuse Amhara forces of similar attacks.
July 16, 2021
Al Jazeera spoke to Fanta Mandefro, deputy president of the Amhara region, who said additional Amhara special forces had been deployed to the borders to defend their land and people.
July 14, 2021
The Amhara Association of America (AAA) has been able to verify three rounds of attacks against Amharas in Amuru and Jardaga Jarte Woredas (districts) of Horo Guduru Welega Zone between July 8th and July 14th, 2021. Victims were ethnic Amhara civilians.The attacks have left thousands displaced with at least 24 killed, 13 injured and the whereabouts of 3 Amharas is unknown.
May 22, 2021
"...Four students had been killed and 12 injured in the clashes erupted over the election campaigning demonstration organized by the Prosperity Party. The resident also mentioned that one of the dead was a university student Furthermore, DW cited Ashenafi Akalu, Chairman of NAMA in West Gojjam Zone, who said that 7 students were killed and 46 were injured in the clash, adding that six of those killed were from neighbourhoods of Amarit, Enamirt, Merawi town Gebrel area, Taringa, Bachma and Dagi Abyot and Kebeles.
Ethiopia: Fears upcoming election could fuel ethnic conflict
April 30, 2021
Most of the international focus has been on the situation in Tigray in the north of Ethiopia, but a growing number of deadly attacks have been under-reported elsewhere, including Gura Ferda in the country’s southwest.There, different ethnic groups compete for land and resources, with deadly consequences.
April 29, 2021
Gunmen killed at least 20 people last week in western Ethiopia, a regional government official said on Thursday, in what he and two residents described as an attack on civilians from the Amhara ethnic group. The incident occurred in the district of Limmu Kosa, in the Jimma zone of the Oromiya region.
April 25, 2021
The death toll in clashes this month between Ethiopia’s two largest ethnic groups, the Oromo and Amhara, in the northern Amhara region may be as high as 200, a senior official said on Sunday, up from previous reports of at least 50.
April 19, 2021
Ethiopia has declared a state of emergency in the southern part of Amhara regional state amid violence in various towns. In a statement on Sunday, the Ministry of Defense said the last three days saw deadly armed violence in the town of Ataye and several other areas in Oromia special zones.
March 31, 2021
Gunmen killed at least 30 civilians in an attack on a village in the Ethiopian region of Oromia, witnesses said on Wednesday, the latest outbreak of ethnic violence to challenge the federal government.
Farmer Wossen Andaege, 50, said his neighbours were killed during the Tuesday night attack in the West Wollega Zone of Oromia. He identified the victims as ethnic Amharas.
March 20, 2021
Tibebu Girma cannot risk it any longer. A farmer in the Qellem Wollega zone of Ethiopia’s Oromia region, the 30-year-old makes a living by cultivating maize and selling it in the markets of nearby villages. But a recent spate of deadly attacks targeting civilians of ethnic Amhara origin has convinced him it is time to pack up and leave with his wife and their infant son for somewhere safer. “They don’t even spare the women and children,” Tibebu told Al Jazeera over the phone. “We aren’t safe here.”
March 12, 2021
A series of attacks in western Oromia regional state mounted by armed men against civilians since Saturday, March 6 claimed the lives of at least 42 people so far, including women and children. The victims are members of the Amhara community living in various Kebeles (districts) of Horo Guduru, Eastern Wollaga zone of Oromia regional state.
February 16, 2021
Ethiopian Citizens’ Party for Social Justice announced that the chairman of the Adea constituency, Girma Moges, was shot dead on Sunday evening. The circumstances under which he was killed were not specified. Commander Tariku Legesse, the city’s police chief, as saying that Ato Girma Moges was killed around 9 p.m. local time, but the killers have not yet been identified.
March 12, 2021
Ethnic conflict in Ethiopia has displaced tens of thousands, uprooting families and young people. Hayria, 11, remembers the day her village was attacked. “When I first heard gunshots, I didn’t think it was anything serious. But the sounds kept getting closer,” she says. Concerned for their safety, the family fled their home in Dangur woreda, a district in the Benishangul-Gumuz region in northwest Ethiopia, and spent the night at Hayria’s grandmother’s house.