According to a state-appointed human rights panel on Monday, numerous civilians have lost their lives this month as a result of drone strikes and door-to-door inspections in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, where officials have highlighted security improvements since fighting broke out in July.
Since the end of a two-year civil war in the neighbouring Tigray province a year ago, the conflict between state forces and local militiamen—who claim the federal government is marginalising the region—became Ethiopia’s worst security concern.
The United Nations announced in late August that the first month of the fighting had claimed the lives of at least 183 individuals. However, it has been challenging to obtain a good picture of the situation due to the region’s widespread internet connection outages.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has documented multiple cases involving the killing of civilians this month in a new report.
In one, the report stated that on October 10, government forces conducted house-to-house searches in the town of Adet, resulting in the deaths of 12 civilians, including religious students.
A week later, a drone strike in the hamlet of Berehet Woreda claimed the life of a 19-month-old child, and on October 19, another drone strike in Debre Markos killed eight civilians, according to the report.
According to the study, government agents killed people extrajudicially when they were detained on the streets or during house-to-house inspections, allegedly on the grounds that they had given the militiamen weapons or information.
Requests for comment from representatives of the regional administration of Amhara, the army, and the Ethiopian government were not immediately answered. On accusations that its forces mistreated civilians in Amhara, the administration has refrained from making any public comments.
Ethiopian army were able to re-enter the area and drive the militiamen out into the countryside after being driven from major cities and towns in the early stages of the fight.
The regional government of Amhara declared earlier this month that security had improved and curfews that had been enforced following the fighting had been loosened.
During the conflict in Tigray, Amhara militiamen fought with the army. after then, there has been a deterioration in the relationship between the two parties, especially after the federal government decided in April to combine the security services that are run by each region into the army and police.
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