In the heart of Frankfurt, a sea of placards emerged, screaming messages in both German and English. A particularly poignant one pleaded, “Stop Amhara Genocide!” Meanwhile, similar scenes unfurled across the Atlantic, where protests percolated through the streets of North America. Calgary, ordinarily a bastion of calm, was overtaken by thousands rallying against the carnage in Ethiopia’s Amhara region. A cacophony of voices pierced the air in Washington, D.C., while Seattle echoed with demands for peace.
The sheer scale of the crisis shocks the conscience, with a death toll that, according to whispers among human rights circles, eclipses recent conflicts in regions as historically turbulent as the Middle East and Ukraine. Yet, paradoxically, there’s a perplexing hush from the world stage.
Esteemed human rights bodies have been anything but silent. They’ve detailed horrific accounts of indiscriminate killings and unsparing drone raids. Just this week, an estimated 70 lives were extinguished by drone strikes near Durbete and Armachiho, leaving a swath of grief in its wake. These senseless attacks didn’t spare the defenseless; women, children, the elderly—even expectant mothers in hospitals—found themselves caught in the crossfire of this unrelenting strife.
The Amhara diaspora across Europe and North America offers a poignant reminder of interconnectedness. They implore global powers to awaken from their slumber and decry the bloodshed. Echoing through their plea is a simple truth: silence only fertilizes injustice.
Your federal government, headed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, positioned the conflict within a narrative of “disarming Fano forces,” a move that unleashed a storm in August 2023. Predictions of a swift resolution proved futile, as the clash endures over a year and a half later. Tales of Fano’s formidable rise, emboldened by confiscated military gear, proliferate even as government ranks stumble across the Amhara heartland.
Reports from those intimately connected to the region suggest a grim escalation of civilian casualties amidst a defense front grappling with significant losses. In an unsettling turn, government voices have cast aspersions on local communities, accusing them of bolstering the Fano resistance, as though compounding conflict with further divisiveness.
At its core, this string of protests signifies more than just a collection of grievances; it encapsulates a desperate cry for awareness, empathy, and intervention from a world teetering too comfortably on the sidelines. If not now, then when?
Edited by: Ali Musa
alimusa@axadletimes.com
Axadle international–Monitoring
