The Amhara Association of America says the war did not pause for Abiy Ahmed’s national dialogue. In a September 1 statement, AAA recorded 75 human rights incidents since July 2026 that victimized 614 civilians, including 226 killed, 55 injured, and 13 cases of sexual violence across Amhara, Oromia, Benishangul-Gumuz, and Central Ethiopia. Most of those incidents, AAA says, implicated federal and regional state actors tied to Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party government.
The air file is especially hard to square with dialogue talk. AAA logged more than 77 aerial strikes across six districts and four zones, including a July 1 drone hit on a school in Tach Gayint, July strikes across East Wollega Amhara communities, a July 22 drone strike on Ghion-Abay St. Arsema Monastery in Borena Sayint, and August drone strikes on schools in Raya Alamata. The group also documented arbitrary detentions, abductions, and forced conscription campaigns that swept up families accused of links to the Amhara Fano National Movement. Where AAA names Gada commandos and other Oromia regional units operating with ENDF and Qeerroo mobs in East Wollega, those forces read as regime-aligned violence against Amhara civilians, not some cultural revival.
The fighting map has not cooled either. Zegabi Media carried a soft-attributed Fano claim that fighters took more than 150 ENDF captives in North Wollo’s Wadla-Delanta belt, a figure neither Addis nor the ENDF has confirmed. France 24, running an AFP investigation, noted Ethiopia’s push to expand domestic drone production while ACLED’s Amhara ledger already counted 102 federal drone strikes since the Fano war began. Abiy’s government sells the UAV plants as deterrence. Rural Amhara hears attrition from the air.
Abiy Ahmed and the Ethiopian government sold the summer dialogue as a reset after a contested election. AAA calls it cover while killings, monastery and school strikes, and forced conscription continued. The regime in Addis Ababa can keep cutting ribbons and broadcasting dialogue sessions. The AAA tally, Zegabi’s North Wollo reporting, and the ACLED drone count say the Amhara war is still being fought on the ground and from the sky.
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