Ethiopia Monthly Update | June 2024
The pursuit of peace in Amhara region

June at a Glance¹

Vital Trends

In June, ACLED records 193 political violence events and 1,011 reported fatalities in Ethiopia.
Battles and violence against civilians were the two most common events in June, with 135 and 50 incidents, respectively. Most of these events were linked with the ongoing conflict between government and insurgent forces in the Amhara and Oromia regions.
In June, ACLED records the most political violence — 114 events and 682 reported fatalities — in Amhara region, followed by Oromia region, with 58 events and 261 reported fatalities.

Infographic - EPO - Ethiopia monthly update - June 2024

The pursuit of peace in Amhara region

The Ethiopian government has organized another round of peace conferences with selected participants in Amhara and Addis Ababa, demonstrating its commitment to negotiations for sustainable peace in the region. In contrast, one of the Fano insurgency leaders has said the Fano militias are not ready to engage in talks with the government due to a lack of unity among the militias. The Fano militias’ unification is impeded by two primary issues: birthplace-based organization and internal conflicts arising from the competition for leadership and resources. Meanwhile, the border of Amhara and Tigray regions experienced heightened tensions in June due to movements and attacks by Tigray forces in disputed territories. In light of this new development, Tigray once again joins Amhara and Oromia regions in the spotlight for high-security threats.

Prospects for peace talks in Amhara

In June, leaders of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and the Amhara regional administration held a consultation meeting with selected participants and prominent Amharas in Addis Ababa and in seven zones in Amhara region.² A concluding conference was held in the regional capital, Bahir Dar, on 24 and 25 June.³ The meetings sought to find solutions for the lack of security in the region. Participants raised various questions for the ENDF leaders, including the mass arrest of Amharas, the killing of civilians in the region, and disputed territories at the border of Tigray and Amhara regions. Following the escalation of the Fano insurgency in the region, leading the militants to gain control of various locations, the government declared a state of emergency on 4 August 2023. Since then, the government has regained control of most of the region, and the state of emergency ended on 4 June. The government stated that public services had resumed in all but eight of the region’s 266 woredas,⁴ indirectly indicating the remaining woredas are still controlled by Fano militias. Since April 2023, local officials have been targeted mostly by an unidentified armed group believed to be associated with Fano militias. In June, ACLED records five events of violence against local officials in North Shewa and North Wello zones.

Clashes between the ENDF and Fano militias continued in June, with 83 armed clash events recorded across nine zones (see map below). Most of these clashes occurred in West Gojam, North Shewa, and North Wello zones. But violence targeting civilians has continued, with such events being recorded in North Shewa, West Gojam, North Wello, Oromia special, and Awi zones in June. According to the ACLED Conflict Exposure tool, since the start of the Fano insurgency in April 2023 until June 2024, over 6.1 million people have been exposed to conflict in Amhara region. Civilians are struggling to conduct their day-to-day activities due to insecurity, with threats to safety including abduction for financial gain by armed groups.⁵

Map - Political violence in Amhara region - June 2024

The prospect for peace talks between the government and Fano militias is low due to one major reason: the militias’ lack of unity. There are two main issues hindering the militias unification. First, they are organized based on their birthplace — such as Gonder Fano, Gojam Fano, Wello Fano, etc. — and do not share a single ideology. Second, there is internal competition and dispute between the various local leaders of Fano militias and their diaspora supporters.⁶ This internal dispute is related to the distribution of collected money, each group’s leader’s aspiration to lead the group, and the accusation of not being included in several meetings that aimed to establish a unified front due to the militia’s birthplace. Though the militias gather support by rallying around territorial interests and warning of impending Oromo domination, the lack of common ideology and internal friction hinder the militias from functioning as one group.

This lack of unification has limited the government and Fano leaders from coming together to negotiate. This challenge was underlined by Eskinder Nega, a prominent leader of the Fano group Amhara People’s Fano Front. He stated that Fano is not ready to negotiate with the government as it is currently focused on internal unification.⁷ In the meantime, before concluding the peace consultation in Bahir Dar, the participants established a 15-member committee, including elders, tasked to bring the government and Fano militias to the negotiation table.⁸ This committee called on members of Fano militias and the government to begin negotiations on 29 June.⁹ Though this is an encouraging step, the two conflicting parties face a long road to sitting at the negotiation table, particularly due to a lack of unity among Fano militias. One-to-one peace talks with each militia would complicate negotiations and offer less guarantee of establishing and sustaining peace in the region. Additionally, without a unified Fano to join peace talks, the government’s efforts to end the conflict have come up short. Previously, the government called on militia members to return to their communities, resulting in hundreds of fighters participating in an integration program that would see them return home without facing repercussions for their previous activities. But not all militias participated, and the conflict between security forces and Fano militias has continued.

Tigray forces mobilization to control disputed territories along Amhara and Tigray regions

In early May, the vice president of the Interim Administration of Tigray announced that Tigrayan officials and the federal government had reached an agreement to finalize the return of internally displaced people from Raya and Tselemte areas by 7 June and those displaced from the Welkait area by 7 July.¹⁰ The federal government has not yet confirmed the Tigray regional officials’ statement on the agreement. Nevertheless, Tigray forces remain mobilized to assert control over disputed territories in Southern and North Western Tigray zones. The government’s reaction to the mobilization of Tigray forces appears to differ in these two zones: In the North Western zone, the ENDF compelled the Tigray forces to withdraw, whereas in Alamata town in Southern Tigray zone, the ENDF placed the forces in various public schools as provisional camps.

Authorities from Amhara region have been in de facto control of disputed territory along the Amhara and Tigray regional borders since the beginning of the northern Ethiopia conflict. These territories include the entire Western Tigray zone — Welkait, Tsegede, and Humera woredas — Tselemt woreda in North Western Tigray zone, and Raya-Azebo and Alamata woredas in Southern Tigray zone (for more on these disputed territories, see EPO Monthly: February 2023). During the northern Ethiopia conflict, the control of Tselemt woreda in North Western Tigray zone, as well as Raya-Azebo and Alamata woredas in Southern Tigray zone, changed multiple times between Tigray and Amhara forces. The Amhara forces, along with the ENDF, regained control of these areas just before the government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed the Pretoria peace agreement in November 2022.

The Pretoria peace agreement specified that all non-Tigray forces should withdraw from the Tigray region, and the parties committed to resolving the contested territories issue “in accordance with the Constitution.”¹¹ Accordingly, the government has indicated that a referendum — held after the return of internally displaced people and the re-establishment of local administration selected by the local people — would decide the status of the disputed territories in Tigray region.¹² However, that would be easier said than done because the current de facto local administrations do not support the referendum, claim to be selected by the local residents, and say they welcome former residents to return to their homes. Meanwhile, the TPLF-led interim administration of Tigray wants all non-Tigray forces to withdraw from the Tigray region so it can control all territories of the region before the referendum.¹³ These two issues have placed the government between a rock and a hard place. In an attempt to peacefully move forward with the referendum, the government has been holding closed-door consultations between the Tigray interim administration and Amhara regional government.

Despite the government’s efforts, the Tigray forces began to clash with Amhara militias in Southern Tigray zone in mid-February. The conflict between the two parties reignited on 25 and 26 March, with Tigray forces controlling a few kebeles. In mid-April, the clashes escalated, both geographically and in number of confrontations and affected populations. The group continued to control various locations surrounding Alamata town — the administrative center of the Southern Tigray zone — and toward the end of May, Tigray forces began to encroach on the town itself. Reportedly, the ENDF has placed the Tigray forces in various schools in the town.¹⁴ Yet, according to Tigray authorities, those deployed in the town are former local militias who fled the area when the Amhara-led administration controlled it.¹⁵ The continued mobilization and activities of the Tigray forces in disputed territories of Southern Tigray zone have led demonstrations by Amhara residents calling for an end to violence against civilians and asking the Tigray forces to withdraw from the territories. In June, ACLED records four such demonstrations in Alamata, Timuga, and Waja towns, with the majority occurring in Alamata town.

A similar mobilization of Tigray forces was also reported in Tselemt woreda in North Western Tigray zone beginning on 3 June (see map below). However, after consulting with the ENDF and local militias, the forces peacefully withdrew from the area. The varying responses of the ENDF to the mobilization of Tigray forces could be attributed to the strength of the de facto local administrations and the potential impact of Tigray forces having access to the international border with Sudan. Among the three de facto local administrations in disputed territories in Western, North Western, and Southern Tigray zones, the Western Tigray zone de facto administration is well-structured with its own well-organized local militias. The current leaders of this zone were previously affiliated with a group that had long advocated for the area to be part of the Amhara region and had been a symbol of the anti-TPLF-led government from 2014 to 2018. Despite multiple attempts, the TPLF-led forces have not been able to regain any part of the Western Tigray zone since the start of the conflict in northern Ethiopia in November 2020. In the meantime, the TPLF-led forces have regained control of North Western and Southern Tigray zones multiple times during the course of the conflict. The government may also be wary of granting the TPLF access to international borders, especially with Sudan, which is experiencing its own civil war. This caution is due to the fact that the TPLF forces have not yet been demobilized. If the Tigray forces persist in mobilizing to recapture disputed territories through force, there is a heightened risk of disrupting the peace established by the Pretoria agreement.