Ethiopian security forces have committed widespread attacks against medical professionals, patients, and health facilities in the country’s northwestern Amhara region since fighting broke out there in August 2023. Many of these attacks amount to war crimes.
A new Human Rights Watch report documents attacks in 13 towns in the region amid fighting between Ethiopian forces and Amhara militia, known as Fano. Civilians in the region are bearing the brunt of the violence as these attacks disrupt desperately needed care.
A Year of Brutality
Between August 2023 and May 2024, HRW interviewed remotely 58 victims and witnesses to abuses as well as medical professionals and aid workers. We also reviewed satellite imagery and verified videos and photographs following an apparent government drone strike on an ambulance in November.
We found that Ethiopian forces endangered or disrupted functioning hospitals. Soldiers beat, arrested, and intimidated medical professionals for providing care to the injured and sick, including alleged Fano fighters. Soldiers also attacked ambulances and interfered with access to humanitarian assistance, denying the Amhara population the right to health.
Doctors and health staff have worked under dire conditions. Fighting in Amhara has disrupted the delivery of medical supplies, leading to shortages of essential medicines in hospitals and health centers.
“We have shortages of oxygen and medication, and since there is no power, we are struggling,” one doctor told us. “The blood bank has stopped collecting blood.”
Humanitarian aid agencies have also faced an increasingly difficult operating environment since August 2023. Nine aid workers have been killed in Amhara since the fighting started.
Ongoing Violence and Accountability
In March, Amhara regional health officials acknowledged that the conflict has caused extensive damage to the healthcare system, though they blamed much of the pillaging on “extremist forces.”
HRW wrote to Ethiopian authorities in June concerning our own findings. The government has not responded.
As civilians suffer in Amhara, the Ethiopian government needs to end these attacks and work to protect health care.
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