Pro-Fano sources say fighters overran federal positions in the Wadla-Delanta-Dawunt belt of North Wollo on September 8 and took more than 150 Ethiopian National Defence Force soldiers prisoner. Zegabi Media carried the claim on September 11, matching Shabelle Media Network reporting that a brigade was destroyed and that other government units pulled back from parts of the battlefield. Neither Zegabi nor Shabelle treats the prisoner count as confirmed. Addis Ababa and the ENDF had issued no immediate statement verifying captives, brigade losses, or a withdrawal.
That soft attribution does not erase the map. North Wollo has been a recurring Fano-ENDF front through 2026. The Amhara Association of America, in its August 31 to September 6 weekly update, logged battle events across more than 16 woreda and city administrations in eight Amhara zones, with civilian harm listed in Alamata, Mida-Woremo, and Efratana-Gidim. Zegabi’s follow-on coverage of Abiy Ahmed’s Mojo logistics ribbon-cutting made the same point: container hubs do not answer shelling and arrests while the war still spans those zones.
The air file is harder for the palace to wave away. Conflict trackers at ACLED count 102 federal drone strikes in Amhara since the Fano war began in April 2023, a running total highlighted by Zegabi Media and by an AFP investigation published via France 24. That AFP piece says Ethiopia now runs SkyWin and Aeroabay drone plants and fields thousands of systems, while International Crisis Group notes drones have been blamed for civilian deaths. On the same Day of Resilience cycle, Abiy Ahmed’s regime cast domestic UAV production as deterrence and prosperity. Rural Amhara hears a different message: attrition from the air, thin independent media access, and a conflict international wires still cover more lightly than the Tigray file.
Fano chairman Zemene Kassie has accused federal forces of indiscriminate strikes on civilians and religious sites. Those accusations remain contested, as do single-day prisoner tallies from partisan channels. What is not contested is that Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party government has failed to produce a political settlement after more than three years of fighting, that ACLED’s Amhara strike ledger keeps growing, and that communities from North Wollo to East Gojjam still live under artillery, drones, detentions, and blocked roads. If the September 8 claim holds even in part, it undercuts palace talk of a collapsing insurgency. If it does not, North Wollo remains contested ground, not a pacified province that Addis can bury under logistics photo ops.
Sources:
Zegabi Media (North Wollo / Fano claim) Zegabi Media (drones / Amhara strikes) Zegabi Media (Mojo hub vs eight-zone war) Zegabi Media on X Shabelle Media Network France 24 / AFP AAA / Europe Says weekly update
