Mereja.Forum

[Za-Ilmaknun]

You can’t fight with the public. The public supports the Fano.’

On Sunday, a government airstrike killed at least 26 people and wounded 55 more when it struck the Amhara town of Finote Selam. Many of the victims were local people who had been taking food to the Fano, according to eyewitness accounts.

Even before this month’s violence, rural Amhara was witnessing a similar uptick in insecurity.

Unlike the TPLF, the Fano may be able to bring in supplies across the Sudanese border. Eritrea, meanwhile, helped train the Fano during the Tigray war, and many Western diplomats suspect it had a hand in fanning this month's fighting. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki was an ally of Abiy’s, but he is believed to have opposed the Tigray peace deal.

A recent wave of arrests in the capital, Addis Ababa, which the state human rights body says is targeting ethnic Amharas, is only likely to fuel the group’s sense of persecution. Last week, Human Rights Watch said the federal government had responded to the unrest with “increased repression”.

Analysts predict a general breakdown of law and order across Amhara as the Fano insurgency escalates, similar to the situation in Western Oromia, the OLA’s stronghold, where government control rarely extends beyond the suburbs of towns.

If that happens, the group will not find it difficult to find recruits among the millions of young Amhara men fed up with Abiy’s government. “You can’t fight with the public,” said a resident of Kobo, one of the centres of the fighting. “The public supports the Fano.”

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news ... ion-amhara