Ethiopia’s army claims to have killed 300 Fano fighters in renewed clashes

In two days of additional fighting in the northern Amhara region, Ethiopian troops claim to have killed more than 300 members of the Fano armed group, which were former allies of rebels in the Tigray region.

The fighters carried out attacks in various areas of the Amhara region before being “destroyed” by the army, according to a statement released on Friday.

According to the statement, 125 injured and 317 killed Fano fighters.

However, Amhara Fano’s spokesperson, Abebe Fantahun, refuted the report, telling the Reuters news agency late on Friday that the army had not yet killed 30 of its fighters.

According to Yohannes Nigusu, a representative for the Fano in the Gondar, Amhara region, 430 federal army soldiers died and 430 were wounded in the fighting, while 98 soldiers had been taken prisoner and weapons had been seized by the fighters.

former allies

In a two-year conflict with the northern Tigray region’s Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Fano fighters fought alongside Ethiopian and Eritrean forces.

Ethiopia and Eritrea have since split, with the former not participating in peace talks to end the conflict in November 2022.

Following Amhara’s repulsive attitude toward the terms of the 2022 peace deal, fighting broke out between the army and the Fano fighters in July 2023.

The TPLF split into two rival groups, each claiming party-control, led by Debretsion Gebremichael and Getachew Reda, last year.

Brigadier General Migbey Haile, a senior military official affiliated with Debretsion’s faction, was charged by the army on Friday with supporting the Fano fighters’ Amhara attacks.

The army claimed that Brigadier General Migbey Haile, an “anti-peace and anti-development promoter,” has a history of putting Tigray’s people to war without the knowledge of the military.

Abebe, however, claimed that that was a “lie” and that the general had no connections to the Fano fighters.

“Abusive army acting with impunity”

After Ethiopia reportedly ordered a national military mobilization and Eritrea reportedly sent troops to their border, there have recently been rumors of a new war.

In addition, Human Rights Watch has accused the Ethiopian military of violating human rights and engaging in war crimes while the organization is still fighting the Fano fighters.

In the town of Merawi in Ethiopia’s northwestern Amhara region, Human Rights Watch discovered last year that several dozen civilians had been executed.

According to Laetitia Bader, deputy director of human rights watch for Ethiopia, the brutal killings of civilians in Amhara undermine government claims that it is attempting to restore order in the area.