--- title: "Amhara Crisis: Is Ethiopia the Next Yugoslavia?" description: "For outside observers, it was a crisis that seemed to blow up from nowhere. At the beginning of August, militants from Ethiopia's ethnic Amhara group swept into towns and cities, capturing key buildings. In the days of street battles that followed, scores of civilians were killed. By the time government forces had reestablished control, some of the Amhara Region's biggest cities were peppered with bullet holes. Coming just nine months after Ethiopia ended its civil war in Tigray, the burst of violence was shocking — an unexpected coda to a brutal conflict. For some of those watching, though, it was more than an isolated upheaval. Instead, it pointed to something that has been worrying analysts since 2020: the possibility that Ethiopia could collapse into a series of bloody ethnic wars. A patchwork of eleven ethnolinguistic states and two administrative regions, modern Ethiopia chugged along for decades as a multicultural success story — the fastest-growing economy in the whole of Africa. But with distrust growing between its peoples, the potential is there for a spectacular implosion. An implosion that could see this nation become the 21st Century's Yugoslavia.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n- Fano militiamen seized major cities including Bahir Dar and Lalibela in early August before retreating to rural strongholds after a government state of emergency was declared.\n- A government drone strike on August 13 killed at least 26 people in Amhara Region, most of whom appear to have been civilians rather than militants.\n- The Fano fought alongside Abiy Ahmed's government in the Tigray War but turned against him after being excluded from November 2022 peace talks and facing disarmament orders in April.\n- Amhara Region is home to over 20 million people with its southern border just 30 kilometers from Addis Ababa, making containment far harder than in Tigray which had six million residents.\n- Over half a million Amharas have fled the Oromia insurgency led by the Oromo Liberation Army, with more than 3,300 Amhara murdered in 2021 alone.\n- At least 1,400 people starved to death in Tigray after the UN and US suspended food aid upon discovering Ethiopian government officials were stealing and reselling humanitarian supplies.\n\n## Blood on the Streets: The Fano Uprising Erupts\n\nWhen the Amhara Crisis erupted in early August, it did so with an intensity few saw coming. Over a handful of days, Fano militiamen steamrollered through the Region's biggest cities. Police stations were attacked. Government buildings were ransacked. Airports were seized and held for days. At its height, the uprising saw pitched gun battles between Fano and Ethiopian government forces on the streets of the regional capital, Bahir Dar. To the west, the tourist town of Lalibela — world-famous for its UNESCO-protected rock churches — briefly fell to the militants. Then, as soon as it began, the crisis seemed to blow over. The government shut down communications infrastructure, declared a state of emergency, and sent in the military. By August 9, the Fano had melted away from the cities they captured, returning to their rural heartlands. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed placed the whole of Amhara under the control of the security services and instituted curfews. The region seems to have settled into a state best described as \"calm, but tense.\" Except that might not be the whole story. While the violence does indeed seem to have abated, most of the Fano militiamen are still at large, operating openly in the countryside from where they draw their popular support. According to the BBC, during the days of the crisis, these same militiamen looted weapons and ammunition from police stations. They released thousands of ethnic Amhara inmates from prisons. On the government side, so many officials fled for the safety of Ethiopia's capital — Addis Ababa — that the federally-backed state government in Amhara is in danger of imploding. More importantly, the underlying tensions that led to the violence have not eased. If anything, the government's response may have cranked them up to 11. Under the current state of emergency, federal forces have set up roadblocks, with reports that ethnic Amharas are being forbidden from traveling to Addis Ababa. In the Ethiopian capital itself, the government responded to the crisis by arresting thousands of Amharas — including at least one opposition MP. And then there is the controversial drone strike. On August 13, a government drone fired a missile into a crowd in Amhara Region, killing at least 26. Rather than militants, though, the dead mostly seem to have been civilians — civilians from an ethnicity that already believes itself to be the target of discrimination by its government.\n\n## Who Are the Fano and How Did They Turn Against Abiy?\n\nComing from an old Amharic word that could translate as \"volunteer fighter,\" the Fano have their roots in the 1930s militiamen who fought Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia — then known to the wider world as Abyssinia. Today, their ranks mostly comprise farmers and unemployed young men who believe the federal government and Ethiopia's other ethnicities pose a threat to them. But there is a twist. In the 2020–2022 Tigray War in northern Ethiopia, the Fano fought on the government's side. Just nine months ago, they were the shock troops who helped Abiy Ahmed's forces escape a crushing defeat at the hands of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF). How they went from helping Abiy to taking up arms against him lies at the heart of the story unfolding today. Ethiopia is an incredibly diverse country. With around 80 different ethnolinguistic communities, the nation is currently divided into eleven ethnically-based regions, plus two autonomous cities: Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa. Each region does not just have its own government, but also its own military — and, often, paramilitary — forces. More worryingly, each region also nurses its own set of grievances against the others. Many of these grievances are historical in nature. For most of the 20th Century — under Haile Selassie, and then the military dictatorship known as the Derg — Amharas sat at the top of the ethnic pile. That includes during the era when the Derg deliberately exacerbated Ethiopia's horrendous famine to starve their ethnic rivals. The Derg's 1991 overthrow, however, brought major changes. With the TPLF instrumental in the Derg's downfall, they were able to elevate their own candidate to the pinnacle. Meles Zenawi was a Tigrayan who oversaw an economic boom in Ethiopia. While his administration lifted millions out of poverty, it also sidelined the Amhara, Somali, and the Oromo peoples. While more than a quarter of Ethiopians are Amhara, and over a third are Oromo, Tigrayans count for just six percent of the population. Nonetheless, Tigrayan leaders dominated politics from 1991 all the way to 2018, when Abiy Ahmed came to power.\n\n## Shifting Alliances and the Rise of Ethnic Resentment\n\nAn Oromo, Abiy became prime minister at the head of a four-party coalition representing the Tigrayans, Amhara, Oromo, and the peoples of Ethiopia's south. Initially, he talked about something called \"Medemer,\" a vision of togetherness and openness. To promote unity, political prisoners were freed, exiles welcomed back, and opposition groups unbanned. By 2019, that unity included the absorption of almost every ethnic political party into the Prosperity Party under Abiy. Only the Tigrayans refused to join. But while Abiy talked a good game — even winning the Nobel Peace Prize for settling a long-running border dispute with neighboring Eritrea — Medemer was already starting to have worrying side-effects. Locked out of power, the TPLF retreated to their base in Tigray. They began refusing orders from the federal government. In Amhara, many of the newly-released political prisoners joined the Fano militia, which was now springing up across the region. The militia felt deeply threatened by the arrival of an Oromo prime minister. During the crises of the 1980s, many Amhara fled drought and famine by moving to Oromia Region. There, Oromo leaders used them as scapegoats for their own ills. By the time the Amhara were deposed as the ruling ethnicity in 1991, relations had grown so poisonous that violence was all but inevitable. The Economist notes that Amhara today believe themselves to have been the targets of an ongoing \"genocide\" ever since. They have certainly been the victims of ethnic violence. In 2021 alone, over 3,300 Amhara were murdered — most of them in Oromia. According to the BBC, Oromia's own paramilitary force — the Oromo Liberation Army — has been accused of widespread atrocities against Amharas. The rise of Abiy played into these fears of persecution. Fears were fanned by a perception that the Prime Minister was secretly trying to turn the Oromo into Ethiopia's dominant group. By late 2020, the political scene was like a dry forest before a wildfire, just waiting for one spark that would burn everything down. Yet, when the conflagration came, it would not be the Amhara and the Oromo — or even the Amhara and the federal government — who were holding the match. Rather, that honor would fall to the leaders of Tigray.\n\n## The Tigray War and Its Bitter Aftermath\n\nIn November of 2020, Abiy ordered the military into Tigray Region to end a political stand-off. What began as a limited action quickly spiraled into a deranged carnival of bloodletting, in which all sides committed atrocities. By the time peace was agreed, in the fall of 2022, some 600,000 people are thought to have died. While the government would eventually win the conflict, it could not do so alone. At one point, Abiy's forces were so badly mauled that it briefly looked like the TPLF would march on Addis Ababa. The reason the government triumphed is because it managed to bring in outside help — not just neighboring Eritrea's military, but also Amhara's regional forces and the Fano. In the opening days of the conflict, Tigrayans hacked scores of Amhara civilians to death in the town of Mai Kadra — a massacre that was answered just hours later when Fano forces slaughtered over a hundred Tigrayans. In the course of the war, Amhara and Fano forces seized and ethnically cleansed Western Tigray in a wave of extraordinary brutality. Human Rights Watch documented how Tigrayan civilians were herded into concentration camps, beaten, tortured, starved, and murdered. Human Rights Watch stated: \"Amhara security forces acting under newly appointed Amhara and Walqayte officials have been responsible for extrajudicial executions, rape and other acts of sexual violence.\" When Tigrayan forces later went on the offensive, they briefly swept into Amhara Region, where they destroyed hospitals, murdered civilians, and used sexual violence as an instrument of revenge. Yet for all the Amharas may have found themselves caught up in a bitter cycle of atrocity and revenge, the fabric of mutual interest tying them to the government began to tear. During the Tigrayan invasion of Amhara, locals accused Abiy's government of running away and abandoning them to their fates. Backed by the African Union and the USA, peace talks between the government and Tigray forces took place in November of 2022 without Amhara officials present. Ethnic Amharas were indeed present, but only those who were part of the federal structure, partnered with Abiy. For the Amharas who had fought against the Tigrayans, it felt like they were being shut out of the peace deal — especially when Abiy announced the issue of land seizures would be dealt with \"in accordance with the constitution.\" For Amhara fighters, the implication was clear: Abiy would return Western Tigray to the Tigrayans. Although that has yet to happen, the perception that it is just around the corner has fueled resentment at the government. In April, Abiy announced the government would disarm every single one of the 11 regional forces operating in Ethiopia, with their members integrated into federal military structures. The announcement caused riots and protests in Amhara — but it also caused an influx of thousands of seasoned fighters from the regional forces into the Fano militias. In July, they reorganized under the banner of the Amhara Popular Front. Mere weeks later, their members were storming cities and airports in Amhara Region.\n\n## Why the Fano Pose a Greater Threat Than the TPLF\n\nFrom a purely military perspective, Prime Minister Abiy should have little to fear from the Fano. The Ethiopian army is equipped with tanks, drones, and heavy artillery — kit that the disorganized, semi-amateur Fano could not even dream of fielding. The government just won a war against a far-more powerful, better-armed group: the TPLF. Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends for the government. What the Fano lack in equipment and training, they more than make up for in popular support. The public in Amhara Region are overwhelmingly behind the rebels. And not just ordinary men and women in the streets. Per the Economist: \"Local police and officials are often more loyal to the Fano than to the federal government.\" That means the Fano have a steady stream of angry young men ready to join their ranks, and the citizenry can collude to make the Region ungovernable. Since April, political leaders from Abiy's Prosperity Party have been assassinated. Killings and kidnappings have skyrocketed. So many officials have fled the area that there is fear the regional government could soon collapse. Amhara is different from Tigray in critical ways. Whereas Tigray lies a few hundred kilometers north of Addis Ababa, Amhara Region sits uncomfortably close to the capital — its southern extremes are just 30 kilometers from the city center. While Tigray was home to six million before the war, Amhara Region is home to over 20 million. Across Ethiopia as a whole, Amharas represent a quarter of the population. One Ethiopian analyst told the Economist: \"Fighting the Amharas is not like fighting the TPLF. Amharas are everywhere.\" The Fano may also have serious allies. Eritrea fought on Ethiopia's side in the Tigray War, but plenty of Western diplomats now think Eritrea's dictator has fallen out again with Abiy and is looking to stir the pot by encouraging and backing the Fano. The potential for regional spillover is also a concern. During the recent crisis, some Fano militias crossed into Oromia and attacked civilians in the town of Mendida. Others clashed along the border with militants from Benishangul-Gumuz Region. Ethiopia's security chief, Temesgen Tiruneh, has warned that the Amhara want to dismantle the whole federal system.\n\n## Oromia Insurgency, Tigray's Lingering Catastrophe, and Economic Decline\n\nWhile the war in Tigray and the crisis in Amhara have gotten all the attention, they are far from the only conflicts to have roiled Ethiopia in recent years. Even as Abiy turns his attention to suppressing the Fano, an ongoing insurgency in his home region of Oromia has been destabilizing the government and deepening ethnic tensions. Led since 2018 by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), the insurgency is technically supposed to be about freeing the Oromo from domination by groups like the Amharas and Tigrayans. What it really seems to be doing is engaging in a clandestine campaign of ethnic cleansing. In the last few years, over half a million Amharas have fled Oromia, while thousands have been murdered. The specter of Oromo paramilitaries burning their villages and killing their compatriots has driven more and more Amharas into the arms of the Fano. Up in the north of Tigray, the war may be over, but its catastrophic aftereffects are still lingering. In April, the UN and the US abruptly suspended food aid to the region when it came to light that the Ethiopian government and military were colluding to steal and sell it at markup. According to the Guardian: \"Aid workers briefed on the initial findings of the USAid investigation say the agency believes this could be the biggest ever theft of humanitarian food and that Ethiopian government officials are deeply involved.\" The side-effect of halting aid has been a return of starvation. The BBC reports at least 1,400 starved to death after the aid was suspended — although it has now been reinstated. From a military perspective, the continued presence of Eritrean soldiers is the major problem in Tigray. Having fought on Abiy's side, Eritrea's forces were supposed to leave under the peace deal. But they are still there: occupying towns near the border, looting villages in the Irob district, and even forcibly recruiting Irob men into the Eritrean Army. Perhaps the most dangerous development in Ethiopia is not the rise of ethnic militias, or the presence of Eritrean troops, but a collapse in living standards. Between 2010 and 2019, Ethiopia was one of the fastest-growing economies on Earth. At a time when the US was chugging along with average growth of 2 percent a year, Ethiopia was averaging an eye-watering 9.5 percent. While in 1995 nearly two thirds of Ethiopians lived in poverty, by 2015 it was closer to a quarter. Today, inflation in Ethiopia is over 30 percent. Staple goods are becoming unaffordable for many. Rates of poverty are increasing in all regions, and shooting up in those affected by war or insurgency. In divided societies, economic woes tend to act as accelerants.\n\n## The Yugoslav Parallel and the Specter of Broader Collapse\n\nWar is not inevitable. For all the boiling ethnic tensions and gathering storm clouds, an even-bigger sequel to the conflict in Tigray is not in anyone's interests. The trouble is, it is hard to see how Abiy can defuse the situation. Because the Fano are independent actors with loosely aligned goals, there is no one leadership team he can negotiate with. And while Abiy could instead try to cut a deal with political leaders in Amhara, it is hard to see what he could offer or whether anyone would listen. Ethiopia becoming this century's Yugoslavia — a patchwork state that collapses into bloody ethnic conflict — is an idea that has gained traction among analysts. Yugoslavia's demise did not just come about because government forces fought one ethnic group, or even two. It came about as the result of a complete disintegration of trust between nearly all its peoples: from Croats, to Serbs, to Bosniaks, to Slovenes, to Kosovars. Ethiopia is not there yet. But there are signs that other bonds are beginning to fray. One part of Yugoslavia's collapse that is rarely remarked on these days is how the economy went kaput at the dawn of the 1990s. As conditions worsened, local government and media divided along ethnic lines and began blaming the other groups for ordinary people's woes — adding oxygen to already smoldering resentments. Addisu Lashitew of the Brookings Institute told the Japan Times: \"Abiy's government is unlikely to survive a sustained mass uprising in the Amhara region, especially given the mounting political and economic crisis around the country.\" And while Abiy is a war criminal who helped engineer a blockade of Tigray that starved hundreds of thousands to death, a complete collapse of Ethiopia's government would be catastrophic. Parts of Africa are going through massive upheavals. Sudan has collapsed into civil war. West Africa is being rocked by military coups, like the recent one in Niger. The Central African Republic is turning into a playground for Wagner mercenaries. In recent history, Ethiopia has acted both as a counterweight to lawlessness and a stable security partner for the West. If it gets sucked into another Tigray-style ethnic conflict, the whole region could be disrupted, with implications for everyone. The hope remains that the situation has been misread, that the Fano will come to a deal with the government, or that a conflict will somehow be averted. Because if the worst-case scenario materializes, there could be dark times ahead not just for Ethiopia, but for the whole of East Africa.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### Who are the Fano and why did they turn against Abiy Ahmed?\n\nThe Fano are Amhara militia fighters whose name comes from an old Amharic word meaning \"volunteer fighter,\" with roots in the 1930s resistance to Mussolini's invasion. They fought alongside Abiy Ahmed's government in the 2020–2022 Tigray War but turned against him after being excluded from November 2022 peace talks, facing disarmament orders in April 2023, and fearing Abiy would return Western Tigray to the Tigrayans. The April disarmament announcement drove thousands of fighters from regional forces into the Fano ranks, and by July they had reorganized as the Amhara Popular Front.\n\n### Why does Amhara Region pose a greater threat to the government than Tigray did?\n\nAmhara Region is home to over 20 million people — more than three times Tigray's pre-war population of six million — and its southern border sits just 30 kilometers from the capital, Addis Ababa. The Fano also enjoy overwhelming public support, with local police and officials often more loyal to the rebels than to the federal government. As one Ethiopian analyst told the Economist, \"Fighting the Amharas is not like fighting the TPLF. Amharas are everywhere.\"\n\n### What triggered the August 2023 uprising and how did the government respond?\n\nIn early August, Fano militiamen swept through Amhara Region's biggest cities, seizing police stations, government buildings, and airports, including the regional capital Bahir Dar and the UNESCO-protected tourist town of Lalibela. The government declared a state of emergency, shut down communications, and sent in the military; by August 9 the Fano had retreated to rural areas. A drone strike on August 13 killed at least 26 people, most apparently civilians, deepening resentment among Amharas.\n\n### What role does the Oromo Liberation Army play in Ethiopia's crisis?\n\nThe Oromo Liberation Army has been conducting an insurgency in Abiy Ahmed's home region of Oromia since 2018, accused of wide-scale ethnic cleansing of Amharas. Over half a million Amharas have fled Oromia, and more than 3,300 were murdered there in 2021 alone. This ongoing campaign drives more and more Amharas into the arms of the Fano, deepening the ethnic polarization that analysts fear could lead to a Yugoslavia-style collapse.\n\n### Why do analysts compare Ethiopia to pre-collapse Yugoslavia?\n\nYugoslavia's disintegration came not from one ethnic conflict but from a complete breakdown of trust across nearly all its peoples, accelerated by a collapsing economy that pushed local governments and media to blame rival groups. Ethiopia today shows similar warning signs: multiple armed ethnic conflicts, an inflation rate above 30 percent, rising poverty, and a federal government losing control in key regions. Brookings analyst Addisu Lashitew warned that Abiy's government is unlikely to survive a sustained Amhara uprising given the mounting political and economic crisis across the country.\n\n## Related Coverage\n- [Is the 21st Century's Deadliest War about to Restart? And More.](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/is-the-21st-centurys-deadliest-war-about-to-restart-and-more)\n- [Why the World Ignored the 21st Century's Deadliest War](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/why-world-ignored-ethiopias-tigray-war-deadliest-21st-century)\n- [Is Ethiopia At War Again? The Escalating Fano Insurgency in Amhara Region](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/is-ethiopia-at-war-again-fano-insurgency-amhara)\n- [Inside Ethiopia's Growing Drone War: How UAVs Are Devastating Civilian Populations in Amhara and Oromia](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/inside-ethiopias-growing-drone-war-civilian-toll-amhara-oromia)\n- [Ethiopia and Eritrea Are Preparing for War: Tigray Faces Another Catastrophic Conflict](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/ethiopia-eritrea-preparing-for-war-tigray-conflict)\n\n## Sources\n1. \n2. \n3. \n4. \n5. \n6. \n7. \n8. \n9. \n10. \n11. \n\n[1]: https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/08/15/ethiopia-risks-sliding-into-another-civil-war\n[2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66496137\n[3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/10/whats-behind-the-crisis-in-ethiopias-amhara-region-a-simple-guide\n[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hejiyWNb03Y&t=3s\n[5]: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/world/2023/08/09/politics/ethiopia-ended-war-another-beginning/\n[6]: https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/amhara-ethiopia-conflict-fano-politics-war-tigray/?one-time-read-code=230610169236479285656\n[7]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/07/people-are-under-siege-why-ethiopias-war-in-tigray-isnt-over\n[8]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/21/ethiopia-oromiya-oromo-amhara/\n[9]: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2023/08/15/ethiopia-shaken-new-and-growing-rebellion-amhara\n[10]: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2023/08/01/boom-bust-fallout-war-and-drought-leaves-ethiopians-mired-poverty\n[11]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/03/07/yugoslavia-facing-economic-collapse/6ca2e395-e681-4330-bb4c-31db71c6de3f/\n\n" url: https://warfronts.pub/article/amhara-crisis-ethiopia-next-yugoslavia.md canonical: https://warfronts.pub/article/amhara-crisis-ethiopia-next-yugoslavia datePublished: 2026-03-04 dateModified: 2026-03-04 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://warfronts.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Warfronts image: "https://media.warfronts.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/OKGdEYk9O7o/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 6bca0bd2a841f19183967985b95458031352a4dd82c6d27dcafcfa836b95d242 tokens: 6570 summaryUrl: https://warfronts.pub/article/amhara-crisis-ethiopia-next-yugoslavia.md.summary.md --- For outside observers, it was a crisis that seemed to blow up from nowhere. At the beginning of August, militants from Ethiopia's ethnic Amhara group swept into towns and cities, capturing key buildings. In the days of street battles that followed, scores of civilians were killed. By the time government forces had reestablished control, some of the Amhara Region's biggest cities were peppered with bullet holes. Coming just nine months after Ethiopia ended its civil war in Tigray, the burst of violence was shocking — an unexpected coda to a brutal conflict. For some of those watching, though, it was more than an isolated upheaval. Instead, it pointed to something that has been worrying analysts since 2020: the possibility that Ethiopia could collapse into a series of bloody ethnic wars. A patchwork of eleven ethnolinguistic states and two administrative regions, modern Ethiopia chugged along for decades as a multicultural success story — the fastest-growing economy in the whole of Africa. But with distrust growing between its peoples, the potential is there for a spectacular implosion. An implosion that could see this nation become the 21st Century's Yugoslavia. ## Key Takeaways - Fano militiamen seized major cities including Bahir Dar and Lalibela in early August before retreating to rural strongholds after a government state of emergency was declared. - A government drone strike on August 13 killed at least 26 people in Amhara Region, most of whom appear to have been civilians rather than militants. - The Fano fought alongside Abiy Ahmed's government in the Tigray War but turned against him after being excluded from November 2022 peace talks and facing disarmament orders in April. - Amhara Region is home to over 20 million people with its southern border just 30 kilometers from Addis Ababa, making containment far harder than in Tigray which had six million residents. - Over half a million Amharas have fled the Oromia insurgency led by the Oromo Liberation Army, with more than 3,300 Amhara murdered in 2021 alone. - At least 1,400 people starved to death in Tigray after the UN and US suspended food aid upon discovering Ethiopian government officials were stealing and reselling humanitarian supplies. ## Blood on the Streets: The Fano Uprising Erupts When the Amhara Crisis erupted in early August, it did so with an intensity few saw coming. Over a handful of days, Fano militiamen steamrollered through the Region's biggest cities. Police stations were attacked. Government buildings were ransacked. Airports were seized and held for days. At its height, the uprising saw pitched gun battles between Fano and Ethiopian government forces on the streets of the regional capital, Bahir Dar. To the west, the tourist town of Lalibela — world-famous for its UNESCO-protected rock churches — briefly fell to the militants. Then, as soon as it began, the crisis seemed to blow over. The government shut down communications infrastructure, declared a state of emergency, and sent in the military. By August 9, the Fano had melted away from the cities they captured, returning to their rural heartlands. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed placed the whole of Amhara under the control of the security services and instituted curfews. The region seems to have settled into a state best described as "calm, but tense." Except that might not be the whole story. While the violence does indeed seem to have abated, most of the Fano militiamen are still at large, operating openly in the countryside from where they draw their popular support. According to the BBC, during the days of the crisis, these same militiamen looted weapons and ammunition from police stations. They released thousands of ethnic Amhara inmates from prisons. On the government side, so many officials fled for the safety of Ethiopia's capital — Addis Ababa — that the federally-backed state government in Amhara is in danger of imploding. More importantly, the underlying tensions that led to the violence have not eased. If anything, the government's response may have cranked them up to 11. Under the current state of emergency, federal forces have set up roadblocks, with reports that ethnic Amharas are being forbidden from traveling to Addis Ababa. In the Ethiopian capital itself, the government responded to the crisis by arresting thousands of Amharas — including at least one opposition MP. And then there is the controversial drone strike. On August 13, a government drone fired a missile into a crowd in Amhara Region, killing at least 26. Rather than militants, though, the dead mostly seem to have been civilians — civilians from an ethnicity that already believes itself to be the target of discrimination by its government. ## Who Are the Fano and How Did They Turn Against Abiy? Coming from an old Amharic word that could translate as "volunteer fighter," the Fano have their roots in the 1930s militiamen who fought Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia — then known to the wider world as Abyssinia. Today, their ranks mostly comprise farmers and unemployed young men who believe the federal government and Ethiopia's other ethnicities pose a threat to them. But there is a twist. In the 2020–2022 Tigray War in northern Ethiopia, the Fano fought on the government's side. Just nine months ago, they were the shock troops who helped Abiy Ahmed's forces escape a crushing defeat at the hands of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF). How they went from helping Abiy to taking up arms against him lies at the heart of the story unfolding today. Ethiopia is an incredibly diverse country. With around 80 different ethnolinguistic communities, the nation is currently divided into eleven ethnically-based regions, plus two autonomous cities: Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa. Each region does not just have its own government, but also its own military — and, often, paramilitary — forces. More worryingly, each region also nurses its own set of grievances against the others. Many of these grievances are historical in nature. For most of the 20th Century — under Haile Selassie, and then the military dictatorship known as the Derg — Amharas sat at the top of the ethnic pile. That includes during the era when the Derg deliberately exacerbated Ethiopia's horrendous famine to starve their ethnic rivals. The Derg's 1991 overthrow, however, brought major changes. With the TPLF instrumental in the Derg's downfall, they were able to elevate their own candidate to the pinnacle. Meles Zenawi was a Tigrayan who oversaw an economic boom in Ethiopia. While his administration lifted millions out of poverty, it also sidelined the Amhara, Somali, and the Oromo peoples. While more than a quarter of Ethiopians are Amhara, and over a third are Oromo, Tigrayans count for just six percent of the population. Nonetheless, Tigrayan leaders dominated politics from 1991 all the way to 2018, when Abiy Ahmed came to power. ## Shifting Alliances and the Rise of Ethnic Resentment An Oromo, Abiy became prime minister at the head of a four-party coalition representing the Tigrayans, Amhara, Oromo, and the peoples of Ethiopia's south. Initially, he talked about something called "Medemer," a vision of togetherness and openness. To promote unity, political prisoners were freed, exiles welcomed back, and opposition groups unbanned. By 2019, that unity included the absorption of almost every ethnic political party into the Prosperity Party under Abiy. Only the Tigrayans refused to join. But while Abiy talked a good game — even winning the Nobel Peace Prize for settling a long-running border dispute with neighboring Eritrea — Medemer was already starting to have worrying side-effects. Locked out of power, the TPLF retreated to their base in Tigray. They began refusing orders from the federal government. In Amhara, many of the newly-released political prisoners joined the Fano militia, which was now springing up across the region. The militia felt deeply threatened by the arrival of an Oromo prime minister. During the crises of the 1980s, many Amhara fled drought and famine by moving to Oromia Region. There, Oromo leaders used them as scapegoats for their own ills. By the time the Amhara were deposed as the ruling ethnicity in 1991, relations had grown so poisonous that violence was all but inevitable. The Economist notes that Amhara today believe themselves to have been the targets of an ongoing "genocide" ever since. They have certainly been the victims of ethnic violence. In 2021 alone, over 3,300 Amhara were murdered — most of them in Oromia. According to the BBC, Oromia's own paramilitary force — the Oromo Liberation Army — has been accused of widespread atrocities against Amharas. The rise of Abiy played into these fears of persecution. Fears were fanned by a perception that the Prime Minister was secretly trying to turn the Oromo into Ethiopia's dominant group. By late 2020, the political scene was like a dry forest before a wildfire, just waiting for one spark that would burn everything down. Yet, when the conflagration came, it would not be the Amhara and the Oromo — or even the Amhara and the federal government — who were holding the match. Rather, that honor would fall to the leaders of Tigray. ## The Tigray War and Its Bitter Aftermath In November of 2020, Abiy ordered the military into Tigray Region to end a political stand-off. What began as a limited action quickly spiraled into a deranged carnival of bloodletting, in which all sides committed atrocities. By the time peace was agreed, in the fall of 2022, some 600,000 people are thought to have died. While the government would eventually win the conflict, it could not do so alone. At one point, Abiy's forces were so badly mauled that it briefly looked like the TPLF would march on Addis Ababa. The reason the government triumphed is because it managed to bring in outside help — not just neighboring Eritrea's military, but also Amhara's regional forces and the Fano. In the opening days of the conflict, Tigrayans hacked scores of Amhara civilians to death in the town of Mai Kadra — a massacre that was answered just hours later when Fano forces slaughtered over a hundred Tigrayans. In the course of the war, Amhara and Fano forces seized and ethnically cleansed Western Tigray in a wave of extraordinary brutality. Human Rights Watch documented how Tigrayan civilians were herded into concentration camps, beaten, tortured, starved, and murdered. Human Rights Watch stated: "Amhara security forces acting under newly appointed Amhara and Walqayte officials have been responsible for extrajudicial executions, rape and other acts of sexual violence." When Tigrayan forces later went on the offensive, they briefly swept into Amhara Region, where they destroyed hospitals, murdered civilians, and used sexual violence as an instrument of revenge. Yet for all the Amharas may have found themselves caught up in a bitter cycle of atrocity and revenge, the fabric of mutual interest tying them to the government began to tear. During the Tigrayan invasion of Amhara, locals accused Abiy's government of running away and abandoning them to their fates. Backed by the African Union and the USA, peace talks between the government and Tigray forces took place in November of 2022 without Amhara officials present. Ethnic Amharas were indeed present, but only those who were part of the federal structure, partnered with Abiy. For the Amharas who had fought against the Tigrayans, it felt like they were being shut out of the peace deal — especially when Abiy announced the issue of land seizures would be dealt with "in accordance with the constitution." For Amhara fighters, the implication was clear: Abiy would return Western Tigray to the Tigrayans. Although that has yet to happen, the perception that it is just around the corner has fueled resentment at the government. In April, Abiy announced the government would disarm every single one of the 11 regional forces operating in Ethiopia, with their members integrated into federal military structures. The announcement caused riots and protests in Amhara — but it also caused an influx of thousands of seasoned fighters from the regional forces into the Fano militias. In July, they reorganized under the banner of the Amhara Popular Front. Mere weeks later, their members were storming cities and airports in Amhara Region. ## Why the Fano Pose a Greater Threat Than the TPLF From a purely military perspective, Prime Minister Abiy should have little to fear from the Fano. The Ethiopian army is equipped with tanks, drones, and heavy artillery — kit that the disorganized, semi-amateur Fano could not even dream of fielding. The government just won a war against a far-more powerful, better-armed group: the TPLF. Unfortunately, this is where the good news ends for the government. What the Fano lack in equipment and training, they more than make up for in popular support. The public in Amhara Region are overwhelmingly behind the rebels. And not just ordinary men and women in the streets. Per the Economist: "Local police and officials are often more loyal to the Fano than to the federal government." That means the Fano have a steady stream of angry young men ready to join their ranks, and the citizenry can collude to make the Region ungovernable. Since April, political leaders from Abiy's Prosperity Party have been assassinated. Killings and kidnappings have skyrocketed. So many officials have fled the area that there is fear the regional government could soon collapse. Amhara is different from Tigray in critical ways. Whereas Tigray lies a few hundred kilometers north of Addis Ababa, Amhara Region sits uncomfortably close to the capital — its southern extremes are just 30 kilometers from the city center. While Tigray was home to six million before the war, Amhara Region is home to over 20 million. Across Ethiopia as a whole, Amharas represent a quarter of the population. One Ethiopian analyst told the Economist: "Fighting the Amharas is not like fighting the TPLF. Amharas are everywhere." The Fano may also have serious allies. Eritrea fought on Ethiopia's side in the Tigray War, but plenty of Western diplomats now think Eritrea's dictator has fallen out again with Abiy and is looking to stir the pot by encouraging and backing the Fano. The potential for regional spillover is also a concern. During the recent crisis, some Fano militias crossed into Oromia and attacked civilians in the town of Mendida. Others clashed along the border with militants from Benishangul-Gumuz Region. Ethiopia's security chief, Temesgen Tiruneh, has warned that the Amhara want to dismantle the whole federal system. ## Oromia Insurgency, Tigray's Lingering Catastrophe, and Economic Decline While the war in Tigray and the crisis in Amhara have gotten all the attention, they are far from the only conflicts to have roiled Ethiopia in recent years. Even as Abiy turns his attention to suppressing the Fano, an ongoing insurgency in his home region of Oromia has been destabilizing the government and deepening ethnic tensions. Led since 2018 by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), the insurgency is technically supposed to be about freeing the Oromo from domination by groups like the Amharas and Tigrayans. What it really seems to be doing is engaging in a clandestine campaign of ethnic cleansing. In the last few years, over half a million Amharas have fled Oromia, while thousands have been murdered. The specter of Oromo paramilitaries burning their villages and killing their compatriots has driven more and more Amharas into the arms of the Fano. Up in the north of Tigray, the war may be over, but its catastrophic aftereffects are still lingering. In April, the UN and the US abruptly suspended food aid to the region when it came to light that the Ethiopian government and military were colluding to steal and sell it at markup. According to the Guardian: "Aid workers briefed on the initial findings of the USAid investigation say the agency believes this could be the biggest ever theft of humanitarian food and that Ethiopian government officials are deeply involved." The side-effect of halting aid has been a return of starvation. The BBC reports at least 1,400 starved to death after the aid was suspended — although it has now been reinstated. From a military perspective, the continued presence of Eritrean soldiers is the major problem in Tigray. Having fought on Abiy's side, Eritrea's forces were supposed to leave under the peace deal. But they are still there: occupying towns near the border, looting villages in the Irob district, and even forcibly recruiting Irob men into the Eritrean Army. Perhaps the most dangerous development in Ethiopia is not the rise of ethnic militias, or the presence of Eritrean troops, but a collapse in living standards. Between 2010 and 2019, Ethiopia was one of the fastest-growing economies on Earth. At a time when the US was chugging along with average growth of 2 percent a year, Ethiopia was averaging an eye-watering 9.5 percent. While in 1995 nearly two thirds of Ethiopians lived in poverty, by 2015 it was closer to a quarter. Today, inflation in Ethiopia is over 30 percent. Staple goods are becoming unaffordable for many. Rates of poverty are increasing in all regions, and shooting up in those affected by war or insurgency. In divided societies, economic woes tend to act as accelerants. ## The Yugoslav Parallel and the Specter of Broader Collapse War is not inevitable. For all the boiling ethnic tensions and gathering storm clouds, an even-bigger sequel to the conflict in Tigray is not in anyone's interests. The trouble is, it is hard to see how Abiy can defuse the situation. Because the Fano are independent actors with loosely aligned goals, there is no one leadership team he can negotiate with. And while Abiy could instead try to cut a deal with political leaders in Amhara, it is hard to see what he could offer or whether anyone would listen. Ethiopia becoming this century's Yugoslavia — a patchwork state that collapses into bloody ethnic conflict — is an idea that has gained traction among analysts. Yugoslavia's demise did not just come about because government forces fought one ethnic group, or even two. It came about as the result of a complete disintegration of trust between nearly all its peoples: from Croats, to Serbs, to Bosniaks, to Slovenes, to Kosovars. Ethiopia is not there yet. But there are signs that other bonds are beginning to fray. One part of Yugoslavia's collapse that is rarely remarked on these days is how the economy went kaput at the dawn of the 1990s. As conditions worsened, local government and media divided along ethnic lines and began blaming the other groups for ordinary people's woes — adding oxygen to already smoldering resentments. Addisu Lashitew of the Brookings Institute told the Japan Times: "Abiy's government is unlikely to survive a sustained mass uprising in the Amhara region, especially given the mounting political and economic crisis around the country." And while Abiy is a war criminal who helped engineer a blockade of Tigray that starved hundreds of thousands to death, a complete collapse of Ethiopia's government would be catastrophic. Parts of Africa are going through massive upheavals. Sudan has collapsed into civil war. West Africa is being rocked by military coups, like the recent one in Niger. The Central African Republic is turning into a playground for Wagner mercenaries. In recent history, Ethiopia has acted both as a counterweight to lawlessness and a stable security partner for the West. If it gets sucked into another Tigray-style ethnic conflict, the whole region could be disrupted, with implications for everyone. The hope remains that the situation has been misread, that the Fano will come to a deal with the government, or that a conflict will somehow be averted. Because if the worst-case scenario materializes, there could be dark times ahead not just for Ethiopia, but for the whole of East Africa. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Who are the Fano and why did they turn against Abiy Ahmed? The Fano are Amhara militia fighters whose name comes from an old Amharic word meaning "volunteer fighter," with roots in the 1930s resistance to Mussolini's invasion. They fought alongside Abiy Ahmed's government in the 2020–2022 Tigray War but turned against him after being excluded from November 2022 peace talks, facing disarmament orders in April 2023, and fearing Abiy would return Western Tigray to the Tigrayans. The April disarmament announcement drove thousands of fighters from regional forces into the Fano ranks, and by July they had reorganized as the Amhara Popular Front. ### Why does Amhara Region pose a greater threat to the government than Tigray did? Amhara Region is home to over 20 million people — more than three times Tigray's pre-war population of six million — and its southern border sits just 30 kilometers from the capital, Addis Ababa. The Fano also enjoy overwhelming public support, with local police and officials often more loyal to the rebels than to the federal government. As one Ethiopian analyst told the Economist, "Fighting the Amharas is not like fighting the TPLF. Amharas are everywhere." ### What triggered the August 2023 uprising and how did the government respond? In early August, Fano militiamen swept through Amhara Region's biggest cities, seizing police stations, government buildings, and airports, including the regional capital Bahir Dar and the UNESCO-protected tourist town of Lalibela. The government declared a state of emergency, shut down communications, and sent in the military; by August 9 the Fano had retreated to rural areas. A drone strike on August 13 killed at least 26 people, most apparently civilians, deepening resentment among Amharas. ### What role does the Oromo Liberation Army play in Ethiopia's crisis? The Oromo Liberation Army has been conducting an insurgency in Abiy Ahmed's home region of Oromia since 2018, accused of wide-scale ethnic cleansing of Amharas. Over half a million Amharas have fled Oromia, and more than 3,300 were murdered there in 2021 alone. This ongoing campaign drives more and more Amharas into the arms of the Fano, deepening the ethnic polarization that analysts fear could lead to a Yugoslavia-style collapse. ### Why do analysts compare Ethiopia to pre-collapse Yugoslavia? Yugoslavia's disintegration came not from one ethnic conflict but from a complete breakdown of trust across nearly all its peoples, accelerated by a collapsing economy that pushed local governments and media to blame rival groups. Ethiopia today shows similar warning signs: multiple armed ethnic conflicts, an inflation rate above 30 percent, rising poverty, and a federal government losing control in key regions. Brookings analyst Addisu Lashitew warned that Abiy's government is unlikely to survive a sustained Amhara uprising given the mounting political and economic crisis across the country. ## Related Coverage - [Is the 21st Century's Deadliest War about to Restart? And More.](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/is-the-21st-centurys-deadliest-war-about-to-restart-and-more) - [Why the World Ignored the 21st Century's Deadliest War](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/why-world-ignored-ethiopias-tigray-war-deadliest-21st-century) - [Is Ethiopia At War Again? The Escalating Fano Insurgency in Amhara Region](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/is-ethiopia-at-war-again-fano-insurgency-amhara) - [Inside Ethiopia's Growing Drone War: How UAVs Are Devastating Civilian Populations in Amhara and Oromia](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/inside-ethiopias-growing-drone-war-civilian-toll-amhara-oromia) - [Ethiopia and Eritrea Are Preparing for War: Tigray Faces Another Catastrophic Conflict](https://warfronts.pub/conflicts/ethiopia-eritrea-preparing-for-war-tigray-conflict) ## Sources 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. [1]: https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/08/15/ethiopia-risks-sliding-into-another-civil-war [2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66496137 [3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/10/whats-behind-the-crisis-in-ethiopias-amhara-region-a-simple-guide [4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hejiyWNb03Y&t=3s [5]: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/world/2023/08/09/politics/ethiopia-ended-war-another-beginning/ [6]: https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/amhara-ethiopia-conflict-fano-politics-war-tigray/?one-time-read-code=230610169236479285656 [7]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/07/people-are-under-siege-why-ethiopias-war-in-tigray-isnt-over [8]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/21/ethiopia-oromiya-oromo-amhara/ [9]: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2023/08/15/ethiopia-shaken-new-and-growing-rebellion-amhara [10]: https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2023/08/01/boom-bust-fallout-war-and-drought-leaves-ethiopians-mired-poverty [11]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/03/07/yugoslavia-facing-economic-collapse/6ca2e395-e681-4330-bb4c-31db71c6de3f/ <!-- youtube:OKGdEYk9O7o -->