In January, Ethiopian National Defense Forces reportedly executed more than 80 civilians in the village of Merawi in Amhara region. The government denies the charges, but the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the European Union, and several countries have condemned the events and called for an independent investigation. In April, Human Rights Watch called the January attacks “war crimes.”
This is not the first such killing in the region, and the killings often follow clashes between the army and a local militia. In September 2023, for example, civilians were murdered in the historic towns of Lalibela and Majete. According to an analysis by the magazine Foreign PolicyEthiopia’s Amhara population has reportedly been subjected to decades of marginalization, mass killings and forced displacement.
In response to an insurgency in the region, including by the armed Amhara group called Fano, the Ethiopian government extended the state of emergency in February, which had been in place since August 2023. The state of emergency gave law enforcement free rein to carry out thousands of extrajudicial arrests, including arrests of Amhara members of the regional parliament. The latter, although theoretically granted diplomatic immunity, were detained for four months.
Following the publication in September 2023 of videos showing the deplorable conditions of detention during this period, the Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide issued a potential genocide alert, highlighting the deliberate killings of Amhara people by Ethiopia’s National Defense Forces under the leadership of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali. Ali defends himself and says he is only targeting a few “extremists” in the region.
Up-to-date information on the situation is difficult to come by, as the government has banned journalists from the region. A year-long internet blackout has also just ended in the region, according to a local nonprofit. Aid workers have also stressed the difficulty of delivering food aid, as there is reportedly an increase in deaths from lack of food.
Unlike the Rohingya in Myanmar or the Uighurs in China, who are often referred to as “foreigners” in their own country, the Amhara are more often portrayed as “historical oppressors” by their detractors, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front or the Oromo Liberation Front. According to a scholar at the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan U.S. think tank, in addition to the many derogatory anti-Amhara terms circulating among Ethiopian ethno-nationalist groups, the Amhara population living outside their home region (some 10 million people) is reportedly subject to organized massacres, harassment, kidnappings, and mass expulsions.
During the Tigray War, from 2020 to 2022, the Amharas temporarily fought alongside security forces against Tigray forces, but the government quickly saw them as a threat to its authority, especially because of the Amhara region’s proximity to the national capital, Addis Ababa. Following tensions in the region, the government reportedly launched three waves of military crackdowns, including one after the assassination of Girma Yeshitila, the leader of Abiy’s Prosperity Party, in the Amhara region.
The politician had often been labeled a “traitor” on social media by Amhara nationalists, due to her closeness to the prime minister. The Amhara militias are therefore not showing clean hands either; they are also accused by human rights organizations of having carried out summary executions during the Tigray conflict.
The Amharas today fear the strengthening of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia, which would further marginalize them as a minority in the country. Although the number of civilians killed is not as high as in other parts of the world, compared to the Rohingya, Uighurs or Gazans, for example, the marginalization of the Amharas is still based on their ethnicity in a country that does not always recognize their fundamental rights.
However, unlike what is done for these other peoples, no country, no entity of the international community has yet qualified the violence experienced by the Amhara people as genocide or an attempt at ethnic cleansing. According to the Ethiopia Insight media, the government is incapable of ensuring the security and representation of the country’s ethnic minorities.
This text is part of a series on oppressed peoples around the world.