Skip to content

Cart

Your cart is empty

Article: Ethiopian military pushes back militiamen in two Amhara towns

Ethiopian military pushes back militiamen in two Amhara towns

Ethiopian military pushes back militiamen in two Amhara towns

PHOTO CAPTION: A partial view of the Lalibela town in the Amhara Region, Ethiopia, January 25, 2022. Picture taken January 25, 2022. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri//File Photo

 

By Dawit Endeshaw

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) -Ethiopia's military has pushed local militiamen out of two major towns in the Amhara region, residents said on Wednesday, in its first major battlefield breakthroughs since fighting erupted last week.

The Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) gained control on Tuesday of the centre of Gondar, Amhara's second-biggest city, and entered the holy town of Lalibela on Wednesday after militiamen left, the residents said.

Ethiopian Airlines, meanwhile, announced that flights to Gondar and Amhara's capital, Bahir Dar - where fighting has also occurred - would resume on Thursday.

Gondar and Lalibela were among the towns where the Fano militia overran the ENDF last week in Ethiopia's most serious security crisis since a two-year civil war in the northern Tigray region ended last November.

The part-time militia draws volunteers from the local Amhara population. It was an ally of the ENDF during the Tigray war but the relationship later deteriorated over accusations the federal government was trying to weaken Amhara's defences against neighbouring regions, which the government denies.

 

Hats



The government of Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country and one of its biggest economies, declared a state of emergency on Friday and rushed soldiers to the frontlines.

Spokespeople for the government and military did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

A Fano militiaman from Gondar told Reuters that the ENDF, backed by anti-riot police and pro-government militiamen, had pushed the Fano fighters out of the city on Tuesday.

"It was intense fighting. ENDF was using tanks. Our fighters were just using Kalashnikovs," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

A local official in Gondar said the military was "almost in full control of the city". Another Gondar resident said he had seen the military enter the city centre on Tuesday afternoon.

Two Lalibela residents told Reuters that ENDF troops entered the town on Wednesday morning following intense fighting on Lalibela's outskirts the previous day.

 

Tees


Two residents in Bahir Dar said calm had returned on Wednesday after several days of fighting.

Amhara's regional administration posted a statement on its Facebook page late on Tuesday saying Gondar and the regional capital Bahir Dar had been "freed" from Fano, but the statement was no longer there on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the regional administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Little information has filtered out of Amhara about the human toll of the fighting so far, but Lalibela residents told Reuters on Tuesday that more than a dozen combatants had been killed over the previous days.

(Writing by Aaron Ross, Editing by William Maclean and Peter Graff)

Patches

MORE FROM THE

OAF NATION NEWSROOM

Pentagon confident on sharing intelligence with Japan despite China hacking report

Pentagon confident on sharing intelligence with Japan despite China hacking report

The Pentagon said Tuesday it was confident about sharing intelligence with Japan — despite a U.S. news report saying Chinese military hackers got into Japanese defense networks. Tap for the full br...

Read more
Deal struck to send dozens of German-made Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine

Deal struck to send dozens of German-made Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine

Dozens of second-hand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by another European country for Ukrainian forces fighting Russia's invasion, the arms trader who did the deal sa...

Read more
#3 Liquid error (layout/theme line 179): Could not find asset snippets/back-in-stock-helper.liquid