Are you asking why the FANO are fighting the “Government Forces” in Ethiopia? Why are there battles to liberate the Amhara region from “the government”?
Scenarios like Alemu’s recounted below and thousands of other ethnic Amharas and those not in line with the Ethiopian government’s biased ethnic governance system became the norm. The open, brutal slaughter of newborns, infants, children, women, and the elderly, non-military targets in areas under government control NOT in theaters of combat became commonplace. Well-organized acts of ethnic cleansing and massacres such as the Gimbi massacre that claimed the lives of over 1,500 ethnic Amharas in a matter of hours were committed with impunity. We owe it to Alemu Beyene and the thousands of other survivors of ethnic cleansing to fight for the future of the country and the freedom of ALL Ethiopians to live freely in their own country.
CHAGNI, ETHIOPIA – DECEMBER 31: Alemu Beyene, 35 of Dubata Warada in the Benishangul-Gumuz region was displaced a year ago and now stays in a displaced persons camp on December 31, 2020 in Chagni, Ethiopia. Ethnic violence in Benishangul-Gumuz, particularly against members of the Amhara ethnicity has been escalating in recent months, including a deadly attack on December 23 in the Metekel Zone that left more than 207 people dead. Alemu says that the federal government and then the Gumuz Elders in Benishangul-Gumuz negotiated with those Amhara displaced by previous attacks promising them peace and resolution and the Amhara residents returned. The Gumuz elders even provided transport for the Amhara to return to their homes in the Benishangul-Gumuz region.
Alemu continued:
“A few months later after they returned, planted and began harvesting of crops, the Amhara suffered violent attacks at the hands of Gumuz militia. In one night in early December 2020 the Gumuz destroyed an entire Kebele (district) called the Apar Kebele. After the slaughter of a large number of people the Kebele has remained unoccupied until this day”.
Alemu tearfully continued:
“We lived in the next town over so I wanted to save my family. I put them on the public bus to Chagni in the Amhara region but the Gumuz militia stopped the bus on the road in the town of Kido in Metekel (on December 12, 2020). They removed my family and 44 others from the bus and killed them. My wife and my three children, 12, 6 and 3 had their throats slit. After I buried my family I returned to my home only to be attacked again by Gumuz militia wearing old military and Gumuz Special Forces uniforms. They killed 25 of my neighbors and left me wounded. Afterwards I escaped here to Chagni.”
