International wires still treat the Amhara conflict as a side note. Ground reports from the week of August 31 to September 6 say otherwise. The Amhara Association of America, in its weekly update, logged battle events and rights violations in more than 16 woreda and city administrations across eight Amhara zones: North Wollo, North Shewa, East Gojjam, Bahir Dar, South Gondar, Central Gondar, North Gondar, and Welkait-Tegede-Setit Humera. Civilian casualties were recorded in Alamata, Mida-Woremo, and Efratana-Gidim. Arrests and abductions were also listed in Gida-Ayana and Dera across the Oromia border belts of East Wollega and North Shewa.
That is the map Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party prefers to shrink into “security operations.” Zegabi Media has kept pushing the opposite ledger: contested fronts in North Wollo, soft-attributed Fano battlefield claims that still need independent confirmation, and a war that has not paused for Addis talking points. Zegabi Media on X and related Zegabi reporting also sit the air campaign beside palace industrial photo ops. Conflict trackers at ACLED count 102 federal drone strikes in Amhara since the Fano war began in April 2023, a running total highlighted again by Zegabi and by AFP via France 24 as Addis showcased SkyWin and Aeroabay drone plants.
Civilians and religious sites keep showing up in the same file. Church and rights channels earlier reported a July 22 drone strike on Abbay Giyorgis St. Arsema Unity Monastery in West Wollo that killed nuns and injured others preparing food for a religious gathering, drawing condemnation from the World Council of Churches. International Crisis Group has said drones have been blamed for civilian deaths on multiple occasions. Fano chairman Zemene Kassie has accused federal forces of indiscriminate strikes. Those accusations remain contested in the usual fog of war. What is not contested is ACLED’s Amhara strike aggregate, AAA’s multi-zone weekly tally, and the absence of a political settlement more than three years into the fighting.
The regime in Addis Ababa can ribbon-cut logistics hubs and call domestic UAVs “deterrence.” Rural Amhara still lives under artillery, drones, detentions, and blocked roads while much of the international press keeps looking elsewhere. If mereja.com ignores that war because Western desks do, the silence becomes part of the story.
Sources:
AAA / Europe Says weekly update
Zegabi Media (North Wollo / war continues)
