Many people have been killed or wounded in recent days in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, where the army and rebels have been fighting for more than two years, the Red Cross said on Friday.
“Escalating conflict has caused widespread suffering,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
In 2023, conflict broke out between the Ethiopian army and traditional self-defence militias from the Amhara ethnic group called the Fano.
Despite the lifting in June 2024 of a state of emergency, clashes between the federal army and the Fano have continued.
“The situation in the eastern part of Amhara deteriorated further at the end of September, when a sudden escalation of hostilities in the North Wollo zone led to large numbers of casualties, captured fighters and other severe humanitarian consequences,” the ICRC said in a statement.
It did not specify whether the victims were civilians, militia fighters or federal soldiers.
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“Many people have been killed or wounded in North Wollo in recent days,” said Martin Thalmann, head of the ICRC in the regional capital Lalibela.
Thalmann said local people were suffering the consequences of the conflict in Amhara, the country’s second most populous region.
“Due to the lack of safety, there is little access to health care, education or transport for people in more remote areas,” he said.
“In the areas most affected by the recent clashes, people are unable to go to markets and harvest their fields. Some have fled to other villages.”
Between 2020 and 2022, a war between federal forces and rebels in the neighbouring region of Tigray killed at least 600,000 people.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signed a peace deal with the Tigrayans in November 2022.
But that triggered fighting in Amhara.
Amhara regional forces and the Fano had backed the national army in Tigray, with which they have a history of land disputes, and are said to have viewed the peace deal as a betrayal.
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