{"id":179437,"date":"2026-10-01T11:12:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=179437"},"modified":"2026-10-01T11:12:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:12:53","slug":"fighting-near-lalibela-strands-tourists-as-amhara-militia-clashes-with-ethiopian-govt-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/179437","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Near Lalibela Strands Tourists as Amhara Militia Clashes With Ethiopian Gov\u2019t Forces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fighting near Lalibela, the Amhara Region town famous for its UNESCO rock-hewn churches, has left about 33 tourists stranded after the local airport closed to commercial flights, according to a late September 2026 report by BBC<\/a> journalists Michael Teferi, Lion Tsigab, and Lucy Fleming. The fighting has involved the Ethiopian federal army and an Amhara militia that has allied with Tigrayan fighters, and a British tourist who asked not to be named told the BBC\u2019s Newsday programme that he had heard gunfire and artillery cannons firing throughout the week.<\/p>\n

The same tourist said there was a large military presence in Lalibela, a holy site for millions of Orthodox Christians and home to 13th Century churches cut from rock. Most visitors had been unable to leave since the airport closed last Wednesday, though he said 14 Israeli tourists were evacuated by military helicopter on Monday and another five left earlier via an NGO convoy. He said the situation around the town had calmed in the last two days and that there were indications the airport, which the military was still using, might reopen on Thursday, while a larger military force had been seen leaving the town heading north.<\/p>\n

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Earlier in September, the Amhara militia and other Ethiopian armed movements joined a seven-member alliance that says it intends to remove the government in Addis Ababa. The BBC said the Ethiopian Government also fears neighbouring Eritrea could be drawn into the conflict, because the authorities in Addis Ababa accuse Asmara of supporting armed groups, which Eritrea denies. Communications cuts across the north have made independent verification of battlefield claims difficult.<\/p>\n

The BBC also reported hospital sources saying at least 52 civilians were killed during three days of heavy fighting around Alamata in southern Tigray, a figure that could not be fully cross-checked from outside the blackout zone, and that government troops appeared to have taken the town and intended to push north toward Mekelle. M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res said more than 700 wounded people had been admitted to hospitals it supports in Tigray. For the tourists still in Lalibela, the British visitor said online banking worked but physical cash was short, and that remaining visitors included Americans, Israelis, Britons, South Koreans, South Africans, an Ethiopian-New Zealander, and a Mexican.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fighting near Lalibela, the Amhara Region town famous for its UNESCO rock-hewn churches, has left about 33 tourists stranded after the local airport closed to commercial flights, according to a late September 2026 report by BBC journalists Michael Teferi, Lion…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":179439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4993],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/post1-featured-lalibela-1.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179437"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179440,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179437\/revisions\/179440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}