Ethiopia: Fano rebels announce an alliance with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front
The head of the Amhara militia Fano, Zemene Kassie, claims that several armed groups opposed to the Ethiopian federal government want to coordinate their actions to overthrow Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. This initiative would include an unprecedented rapprochement with Tigrayan factions, who were enemies of the Amhara fighters during the civil war from 2020 to 2022.
SUMMARY
Zemene Kassie announced these new alliances in an interview given on Saturday, August 15, to the Swiss daily Le Temps. The head of Fano did not detail the exact composition of this coalition or its timeline, but he confirmed the existence of discussions with armed forces active in several regions of Ethiopia.
Among the groups involved would be factions from Tigray in the north of the country. However, this cooperation is currently presented, based on available information, as a political and military alliance announced by Fano, without a formal agreement or joint command structure being made public.
Former enemies united against the federal government
The rapprochement is considered significant by Yohannes Woldemariam, a specialist in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa at the University of Colorado, USA. According to him, the Amhara and Tigrayan fighters have decided to set aside their territorial disputes to make Abiy Ahmed’s government their main opponent.
Between 2020 and 2022, Amhara forces fought alongside the federal army against the forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The conflict, triggered by the government’s military intervention in the Tigray region, is estimated to have caused up to 600,000 deaths, a toll that has not been comprehensively established.
The Pretoria agreement, signed in November 2022, had put an end to the main military operations. However, it did not resolve all the disputes between the Tigrayan and Amhara communities, particularly around contested territories in northern Ethiopia.
For Yohannes Woldemariam, this convergence could represent a serious threat to Addis Ababa. The analyst believes that sustainable coordination among armed groups from several regions could provoke new clashes and have repercussions beyond Ethiopian borders.
He also accuses the ruling Prosperity Party of seeking to fuel tensions between Amharas and Tigrayans. This assertion is based on the analyst’s evaluation and has not been substantiated by independent information in the available reports.
The federal government has not communicated any details regarding the extent of the alliance claimed by Fano in light of this announcement. Therefore, the terms of cooperation between the various armed groups and their capacity to conduct coordinated operations against the central authorities remain uncertain.
Comments