At least 26 people were killed in a suspected airstrike on a village square Sunday morning in the town of Finote Selam in Ethiopia’s Amhara region. At least 55 people were also wounded. It is unclear how many civilians are among the dead.
“The explosion rocked the town,” Tikikil Kumlachew told Reuters news agency. He was visiting a relative in a nearby hospital at the time. “I don’t know if it was a drone or something else. But it fell from the sky,” he said. The Ethiopian government has not yet responded.
The federal government wanted to disarm local forces in all regions of the country, but that ended up happening only in Amhara. Then the local Fano militia rebelled. In early August, fighting broke out in Amhara between the government army and the Fano. Fano militias took control of several towns in Amhara.
The Fano is a resistance movement and gains support mainly among Amhara’s peasant population. The region has a population of more than 20 million. According to the national government, Fano wants to overthrow the regional government in Amhara.
Red travel advisory Amhara region
The Ethiopian government declared a state of emergency Aug. 4. The Internet was shut down in parts of Amhara. Then the Dutch Foreign Ministry tightened the code for travel to Amhara to orange. Since then, the travel advisory has been raised to red for the Amhara region.
Cease-fire in November
As recently as last November, the government of Ethiopia reached a cease-fire agreement with militant groups in the northern Tigray region. The country was then two years into a civil war estimated to have claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. During this war, Fano and the Ethiopian government were allies against Tigrayan forces.
After Nigeria, Ethiopia, with some 120 million inhabitants, is the most populous country in Africa.