The government of Ethiopia has arrested officials branded possible collaborators in the Amhara region following failures of a series of military campaigns in the region against rebel forces also known as “Fano”.
According to information reaching APA on Wednesday, as many as 300 senior government officials of the region were arrested including those in the security apparatus.
Medical doctors were not also excluded for allegedly collaborating with the Fano forces or offering medical treatment in nearby hospitals.
Since last weekend, the government forces have launched another round of attacks against the Fano, with drone attacks as well but yielded no desired results. Dozens of civilians were killed by the drone attacks.
According to witnesses, the ethnic Amhara military commanders were involved in coordinating the crackdown on government officials and even professionals in the region.
It has been well over a year now since the federal government launched a military operation in the region in an attempt to disarm Fano forces following the two-year war between the government and Tigray forces. However, Fano forces have turned out to be more and more powerful in the course of time as the government troops have been surrendering to them in almost all battles.
Fano forces emerged, as they say, in response to recurring and pervasive massacres of ethnic Amharas across the country – mostly due to the hate-based ethnic ideology.
The relentless massacre of ethnic Amhara was particularly observed since Abiy Ahmed became Prime Minister in 2018.
The Fano group got an overwhelming grassroot support from the region – one of the factors that made it difficult for government forces to deal with. The situation, however, led to extensive rights violations in the region.
MG/as/APA