Fano is an ethno-nationalist Amhara militia and former protest movement that first emerged in 2010s. Ideologically Amhara nationalist and Pan-Ethiopianist, Fano has been engaged with several wars and civil conflicts in Ethiopia, and were a major belligerent in the Tigray War and the OLA insurgency.
Relations between the Ethiopian government and Fano aggravated in 2023 which ultimately resulted in the ongoing War in Amhara. During the course of conflict, the Fano militia controlled most of Amhara region and is composed of six major factions operating in the zones and districts of the Amhara region. These factions are:
The Fano faction in Wollo is led by Mire Wodajo and commanded by Command division of Fano under Colonel Fantahun Muhabe. In April 2024, the division said to be reached an agreement the federal government under single command. [1] Like other divisions, the Wollo faction is actively operating in the Amhara Region and engaging in fighting against Ethiopian government forces. [2] In July 2024, the Ethiopian security forces captured the division's logistic supplier in South Wollo Zone. [3]
The Gojjam Fano is co-headed by Asres Mare and Zemene Kassie. In August 2024, the Gojjam Fano has been undertaking special operation after the ENDF deployed 30,000 troops As part of their strategy, the division restricted any vehicular movement, only ambulance allowed for transportation. [4] [5] [6] The Gojjam Fano rumored to reach agreement with the government. Meanwhile the head of the foreign and diaspora affairs department for the division Simeneh Mulatu dismissed that there have not been any talks or negotiations they started with the government. [7] On 26 March 2024, the ENDF Brigadier General Gaddissa Diro was killed in Dega Damo area of Gojjam. [8]
The Gondar Fano is headed by Baye Kenaw and Mesafint Tesfu is the leader of The Amhara Fano Unity in Gondar (AFUiG). [9] The group has played a crucial role in operations during the August 2023 fighting with the ENDF troops, caputing the Gondar city until they pushed back by the troops on 8 August. [10] On 20 March 2024, Major Wubante Abate, a prominent Fano leader and founder of Guna Brigade of Fano forces in Gondar was reportedly killed in action. He was killed in Dera district, Gelawdowos area in after long battle with the government force. [11] On 4 April 2024, the Fano units in South Gondar claimed that they have killed 52 ENDF soldiers while 36 reportedly wounded. The operation codenamed "Zemecha Operation Wubante" was followed as a response of Wubante's death in the same region. [12] [13]
The Shewa Fano is led by Meketaw Mamo under the name Shewa Province Command. [14] On 3 March 2024, Fano forces captured Shewa Robit town. Mamo Bridge confirmed to Anchor Media that the town is under control and fighting is take place. After the government withdrew from the mountainous region, it was alleged that the government troops targeted artillery shelling in the town. [15] In July, the division reportedly engaged fighting with joint ENDF–militia force in a location about 55 kilometers to the capital Addis Ababa. According to an Ethiopian Media Services (EMS) report, the government force deployed shelling at Koremash town, in Hageremariam Kessem woreda, with heavy artillery indiscriminately. Deputy Public Relation Head of the Amhara Fano Shewa Nigatu Yitaferu, the Fano forces have withdrew from the town to avoid civilian causality, while ambushing into the rural areas. [16] On 22 July, Shewa's Fano leader Assegid Mekonnen has been surrendered by the Ethiopian security forces. [17] [18]
The Amhara People's Army was founded by Eskinder Nega in Gojjam in March 2024. It was initially named as the Amhara People’s Front (APF). [19] [20] [21] It was rumored that Eskinder was allied to other Fano groups and he was hidden. [22]
The Amhara Region, officially the Amhara National Regional State, is a regional state in northern Ethiopia and the homeland of the Amhara, Awi, Xamir, Argoba, and Qemant people. Its capital is Bahir Dar which is the seat of the Regional Government of Amhara. Amhara is the site of the largest inland body of water in Ethiopia, Lake Tana, and Semien Mountains National Park. Amhara is bordered by Sudan to the west and northwest and by other the regions of Ethiopia: Tigray to the north, Afar to the east, Benishangul-Gumuz to the west and southwest, and Oromia to the south. Towns and cities in Amhara include: Bahir Dar, Dessie, Gonder, Debre Birhan, Debre Tabor, Kombolcha, Weldiya, Debre Markos, Seqota, Kobo, and Metema.
South Gondar or Debub Gondar, is one of Zones in Amhara Region, Ethiopia. This zone is named for the city of Gondar, which was the capital of Ethiopia until the mid-19th century, and has often been used as a name for the local province. As of the 2007 census, it has over two million people.
South Wollo is a zone in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. It acquired its name from the former province of Wollo. South Wollo is bordered on the south by North Shewa and the Oromia Region, on the west by East Gojjam, on the northwest by South Gondar, on the north by North Wollo, on the northeast by Afar Region, and on the east by the Oromia Special Zone and the Argobba special woreda. Its highest point is Mount Tabor in Amhara Sayint, 4247 meter above sea level. Cities in South Wollo include Kombolcha, Hayq, Dessie, Wuchale and Wurgessa.
Eskinder Nega is an Ethiopian journalist, blogger and politician who has been jailed several times by the Ethiopian government on convictions for treason and terrorism. He is currently the leader of the Amhara People's Army faction of the Fano insurgency which is fighting against the government in the Amhara region.
The Wollo Oromo people are an Oromo subgroup inhabiting the historic Wollo Province of northern Ethiopia.
Abiy Ahmed Ali is an Ethiopian politician who is the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018 and the leader of the Prosperity Party since 2019. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea".. Abiy served as the third chairman of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that governed Ethiopia for 28 years and the first person of Oromo descent to hold that position. Abiy is a member of the Ethiopian parliament, and was a member of the Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), one of the then four coalition parties of the EPRDF, until its rule ceased in 2019 and he formed his own party, the Prosperity Party.
The 2021 Ethiopian general election to elect members of the House of Peoples' Representatives was held on 21 June 2021 and 30 September 2021. Regional elections were also held on those dates.
Fano is an ethno-nationalist Amhara militia and former protest movement. It has engaged in violent clashes throughout Ethiopia in the name of neutralizing perceived threats to the Amhara people. Fano has absorbed many units and personnel of the Amhara Regional Special Forces that did not integrate into the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF). Fano militias have been involved in armed conflicts with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), and the ENDF. They have also clashed with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on the border of Ethiopia and Sudan.
The ongoing Ethiopian civil conflict began with the 2018 dissolution of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (ERPDF), an ethnic federalist, dominant party political coalition. After the 20-year border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a decade of internal tensions, two years of protests, and a state of emergency, Hailemariam Desalegn resigned on 15 February 2018 as prime minister and EPRDF chairman, and there were hopes of peace under his successor Abiy Ahmed. However, war broke out in the Tigray Region, with resurgent regional and ethnic factional attacks throughout Ethiopia. The civil wars caused substantial human rights violations, war crimes, and extrajudicial killings.
The Humera massacre was an ethnic mass murder event carried out in November 2020 in the town of Humera in the Tigray Region of northwestern Ethiopia, next to the Sudanese border. The massacre took place during an armed conflict between the regional government of Tigray and the federal government of Ethiopia. Refugees attributed the massacre to Amhara militias, including Fano, and the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF).
The government of Amhara Region is composed of the executive branch, led by the President; the legislative branch, which comprises the Regional Council; and the judicial branch, which is led by the Regional Supreme Court. The Amhara Region alongside almost all other regions are based on a singular ethnicity excluding Chartered Cities, Addis Ababa, and Dire Dawa and the Region Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region.
The 2021 Ataye clashes were two episodes of large-scale ethnic violence killing hundreds in and around the Ethiopian town of Ataye, leading to nearly a quarter of the town being destroyed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
This Timeline of the Tigray War is part of a chronology of the military engagements of the Tigray War, a civil war that began in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia in early November 2020.
Since the 1990s, the Amhara people of Ethiopia have been subject to ethnic violence, including massacres by Tigrayan, Oromo and Gumuz ethnic groups among others, which some have characterized as a genocide. Large-scale killings and grave human rights violations followed the implementation of the ethnic-federalist system in the country. In most of the cases, the mass murders were silent with perpetrators from various ethno-militant groups—from TPLF/TDF, OLF–OLA, and Gumuz armed groups.
The War in Amhara is an armed conflict and insurgency in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia that began in April 2023 between the Amhara regional forces along with the Fano militia, and the Ethiopian government. The conflict began after the Ethiopian military raided the Amhara Region to disarm the Amhara Special Forces and other regional allies, which resulted in resistance of local armed forces and a series of protests in Gondar, Kobo, Sekota, Weldiya and other cities on 9 April.
A six-month state of emergency was declared on 4 August 2023 by the Ethiopian government in response to severe conflict and instabilities in Amhara Region after the Amhara militia Fano and the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) clashed in several locations in the region on 1 August. On 3 August, the Amhara Region government requested additional help to the federal troops. The fighting is the most serious security crisis since the Tigray War.
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The 2022 North Shewaclashes were a series of clashes that broke out between ethnic Amhara Fano militiamen, the Oromo Liberation Army, and the Ethiopian National Defence Forces in the North Shewa zone in the Oromia region and the Oromia Zone in the Amhara region, which resulted in dozens of people killed and thousands displaced.
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