Issue No. 230

The Fano insurgency reaches Addis 

On 12 April 2024, the Fano insurgency escalated further. For the first time, the Amhara nationalist forces struck in Addis Ababa, engaging in a shoot-out with local police in the Bole district of the capital. Two Fano militia were killed, and two police were injured in an exchange of gunfire near Millennium Hall. It was an indication that the restlessness in the Amhara region is spilling over into the capital amid a continued struggle by Ethiopia's security forces to subdue the various Fano factions.
 
While reports of this event are contested, according to capital police, three Fano militia, Nahusenai Andarge Tarekun, Abenezer Gashaw Abate and Habtamu Andarge Tesema, were confronted by police while they prepared for a significant attack. Fano factions, on the other hand, assert that the three were covertly seeking to develop Fano presence in the capital. The police report is likely more accurate, with Nahusenai Andarge having been under police surveillance for several months prior to the incident.
 
Throughout history, Addis has generally been immured from the violence and rebellions that have affected the country's peripheries and the capital's outskirts. Ever since Menelik II established a small resort town as the capital in 1889, Addis has been the seat of power from which successive administrations have projected their influence and power. Even as the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front were advancing on the Derg in the capital in the early 1990s, many did not believe they could reach the city gates. Today, in Addis, the impact of insurgencies in Oromia and Amhara has been largely felt in terms of high rates of inflation, arbitrary arrests, increased security presence, and general unease that has permeated the capital. Neither the Oromo Liberation Army nor Fano have conducted a major attack in the city-- until now.
 
Following an emergency meeting of the Joint Security Task Force, dozens of Amhara civilians were summarily rounded up across Addis. Additional security forces were deployed to the streets and to the various entry and exit points of the capital. Despite this display of force and the insistence by the federal government that police foiled the attack, it still represents an arguably embarrassing incident for Ethiopian security, which had until then been able to keep the impact of the Fano insurgency away from the capital. To do this, it has restored to employing the controversial and strict security measures that were enforced during the Tigray War, imprisoning hundreds suspected of being sympathetic to the insurgents. Bajaj, three-wheeled motorbikes, have been intermittently banned from the streets of the capital, as well as towns across Amhara. In contrast, far less attention has been paid to legitimate grievances of Amhara civilians, including farmers frustrated by lack of access to fertiliser, disenfranchised urban youth without jobs, and a humanitarian crisis that continues to consume much of northern Ethiopia.
 
In Amhara, Fano factions have maintained debilitating hit-and-run tactics against Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) in multiple places, including Gojjam, Wollo, and Gondar. They have particularly targeted police stations and military camps, seizing weapons and freeing Fano prisoners. The enduring scale and complexity of their attacks are clear signals that the government's current counter-insurgency tactics are flagging in Amhara as well. The launch of a significant offensive of 40,000 ENDF just weeks ago, accompanied by heavy weaponry and artillery, was heralded as the beginning of the end of Fano. It has proved to be anything but decisive.
 
Less than four years ago, thousands of Amhara civilians were mobilised by Fano and the federal government to protect the capital from advancing Tigray Defence Forces. In this light, there is a certain irony in the fact that just days after the Fano shoot-out in Addis, Tigray Interim Administration and Prosperity Party officials met there for discussions on the implementation of the Pretoria agreement. More broadly, the Fano attack in Bole should serve as a wake-up call about the scale of the challenges facing the Amhara region and Ethiopia today. Claims that Amhara is stabilising and Fano is under pressure do not bear out. Growing and sustained insurgencies in Amhara and Oromia, reports of clashes in southern Tigray between Amhara and Tigrayan forces, and the massive humanitarian crisis consuming swathes of the country make for a toxic mix. It is clear that hard-line security measures offer no genuine substitute for good-faith negotiations and reconciliation.

By the Ethiopian Cable team