Fighting Between Government Forces and Fano Spreads Across South Gondar, Residents Tell DW

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Ploughed fields and scattered trees in front of green hills and a tall rocky outcrop near Addis Zemen, with a yellow-domed church on a hilltop and power lines across a blue sky.

[file photo] The countryside around Addis Zemen in South Gondar zone, November 2018. [Wikimedia Commons, Sailko, CC BY 3.0]

Fighting between government forces and Fano has spread to several parts of South Gondar zone in the Amhara region since Saturday, residents told DW Amharic on Monday, with battles going on all day on Sunday around Ambesame, Gelawdewos, Addis Zemen, Hamusit, Gaint, Guna and Kimir Dingay.

The heaviest fighting was around Arb Gebeya, Guna and Libo Kemkem, residents said, and drones flew heavy surveillance over the area through the weekend, according to the report by DW’s Tsehay Chanie Filatie on the broadcaster’s northern Ethiopia live blog. Until now the war between the Ethiopian federal government and Fano forces had been fiercest in North and South Wollo and North Shewa, residents said, and residents in parts of Wollo told DW they had seen no new clashes there since Thursday. DW also reported that residents on the border between the Afar and Amhara regions said fighting broke out there on Saturday, and that two people had been killed and many wounded.

The spread of the fighting into South Gondar follows a weekend of claims from the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM) that could not be independently confirmed. Statements from the Belay Zeleke 3rd Command and the Tewodros 2nd Command of the movement’s Gondar General Province, posted on X on Saturday by Nebiyu (@neby_G), said their fighters launched an operation named for Major Temesgen Abraham on Oct. 24 against nine towns: Gelawdewos, Arb Gebeya, Ambesame, Ginda Temem and Licha, Dera Hamusit, Mekane Yesus, Kimir Dingay, Addis Zemen and Nefas Mewcha. The commands said at least 278 federal personnel were killed on three of those fronts, that 344 Kalashnikov rifles and other weapons were seized, and that their fighters freed more than 250 young people and students held in Kimir Dingay who were “below military recruitment age.”

Amhara War Updates said Fano took back Addis Zemen, the seat of Libo Kemkem woreda, after heavy fighting around the town and Arnogarno, and that federal troops pulled back toward Yifag and Wereta. It said fighters attacked Kimir Dingay at night and held the town by the afternoon, closing the highway from Debre Tabor to Nefas Mewcha, while residents stayed indoors and the weekly market did not open, and that fighting also cut the road from Bahir Dar through Dera and Estie to Debre Tabor.

A further statement shared on Monday gave more detail on Dera woreda. It said fighters from the Tana Gelawdewos and 23rd Nebelbalu Fogera divisions surrounded government positions in Ambesame from four directions, and that in Arb Gebeya the Aferwanat Brigade and units of the Tewodros 2nd Command overran a military camp, killing 18 government troops and capturing six, according to the account as posted by @neby_G. Monday’s version described one of the six captives as a lieutenant, where Saturday’s said a captain. Also on Monday, the Belay Zeleke 3rd Command’s 305th Gobe Corps said in a statement shared by the account @Geteriew1 that its fighters stormed a government position in Dibiko kebele of Metema woreda, in West Gondar, at about 4 p.m. on Sunday, and it claimed 115 riot police and counterinsurgency troops were killed. None of these numbers can be independently confirmed.

The Ethiopian National Defense Force, the federal government and the Amhara regional administration had not commented publicly on the South Gondar fighting or on Fano’s claims by Monday morning. On Sunday, the army chief, Field Marshal Birhanu Jula, told a Defense Forces Day ceremony in Addis Ababa that the army had defeated what he called “seven Tsimdo groups,” the alliance of armed groups that includes the AFNM, as Zegabi reported.

The towns named over the weekend sit on the main roads that link Gondar, Bahir Dar and Debre Tabor. Dera woreda, where Hamusit, Ambesame, Arb Gebeya and Gelawdewos lie, has also been hit from the air in recent days, including a drone strike on a primary school that killed at least six children, according to Addis Standard, as Zegabi reported.

On X, Nurhachi (@Zeyede1264) posted video on Monday that it said showed “Fano fighters attacking ENDF positions in Addis Zemen town,” adding that “most of the fighting took place in Addis Alem, Tele and Kidane Mihret areas.” Mulugeta Yared (@MuluGondar) wrote in Amharic in reply to a post on the offensive, “The people want peace and education, not battlefields. How long will Fano keep up this cycle of death?” Dagmawi M. Belay (@dagmawi_belay) addressed Fano’s leaders in Amharic on Monday and asked, “If all those young men were trained, as we are told, how is it so hard to take Bahir Dar and Gondar?” He wrote that “taking and letting go of a village or a woreda leads nowhere.” Majakovsk (@Majakovsk73) wrote in Italian that Kimir Dingay and Addis Zemen had been taken but that clashes were recorded “along the whole highway, which is the central axis of the region.”

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