Ethiopia’s state-backed Amhara region security forces are attacking people in their own region (Vice)
Posted: 14 May 2021, 21:13
‘They Set Everything On Fire’: The Paramilitary Forces Killing People They’re Meant to Protect
Ethiopia’s state-backed Amhara region security forces are attacking people in their own region. The resulting violence has displaced thousands.
Rehima Bushra, a 28-year-old single mother, is just grateful to be alive. In mid-March, ethnic tensions in her hometown in northern Ethiopia boiled over and led to days of armed clashes. Hundreds died and more were rendered homeless after fighters set houses and businesses ablaze.
“During Ramadan, we are to thank Allah for our blessings,” Rehima told VICE World News from her sister’s home in Ethiopia’s South Wollo district in the country’s Amhara region. Her own home, she said, was among those burnt down by uniformed assailants. “But at least we have roofs over our heads. So many others do not.”
Tens of thousands of people like Rehima and her children have been displaced from their homes by fighting between ethnic factions that erupted in Ethiopia’s Amhara region. The Ethiopian army deployed soldiers to calm tensions, but VICE World News spoke to 11 residents in the area who say that it was in fact uniformed members of the government-backed Amhara regional security forces who were behind much of the carnage and destruction over the past six weeks. Several residents said that as a result, they have been forced to shelter at makeshift camps after members of the paramilitary set their homes alight. In response, retaliatory attacks over the course of the following weeks led to more bloodshed, fomenting divisions among the ethnic Amhara and Oromo communities in the area.
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Ethiopia’s state-backed Amhara region security forces are attacking people in their own region. The resulting violence has displaced thousands.
Rehima Bushra, a 28-year-old single mother, is just grateful to be alive. In mid-March, ethnic tensions in her hometown in northern Ethiopia boiled over and led to days of armed clashes. Hundreds died and more were rendered homeless after fighters set houses and businesses ablaze.
“During Ramadan, we are to thank Allah for our blessings,” Rehima told VICE World News from her sister’s home in Ethiopia’s South Wollo district in the country’s Amhara region. Her own home, she said, was among those burnt down by uniformed assailants. “But at least we have roofs over our heads. So many others do not.”
Tens of thousands of people like Rehima and her children have been displaced from their homes by fighting between ethnic factions that erupted in Ethiopia’s Amhara region. The Ethiopian army deployed soldiers to calm tensions, but VICE World News spoke to 11 residents in the area who say that it was in fact uniformed members of the government-backed Amhara regional security forces who were behind much of the carnage and destruction over the past six weeks. Several residents said that as a result, they have been forced to shelter at makeshift camps after members of the paramilitary set their homes alight. In response, retaliatory attacks over the course of the following weeks led to more bloodshed, fomenting divisions among the ethnic Amhara and Oromo communities in the area.
Continue reading