Ethiopian Human Rights Commission Chief Commissioner Birhanu Adelo presents the commission’s annual report to journalists in Addis Ababa on October 9, 2026. (Photo: Ethiopian Human Rights Commission via X)
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission says killings, unlawful detentions, abductions for ransom and enforced disappearances continued across much of Ethiopia over the past year, in an annual report released in Addis Ababa on Friday.
The report, the commission’s fifth, covers June 2025 to June 2026. Chief Commissioner Birhanu Adelo presented it to journalists at the commission’s head office. The Reporter said the commission described the state of the right to life and personal security as “alarming.” DW Amharic quoted the commission as saying many incidents showed the right to life “remained a concern” in different parts of the country.
In Amhara, the report said, the long armed conflict between government forces and armed groups “commonly referred to as ‘Fano’ and ‘Qemant armed groups'” killed and injured civilians in crossfire and in revenge attacks. In Oromia, fighting between government forces and the Oromo Liberation Army, which the commission calls “OLF-Shane,” and attacks on civilians caused deaths, property damage and displacement. It also recorded deadly attacks in Benishangul-Gumuz, South Ethiopia, Gambella, Central Ethiopia and Somali, carried out by government actors, armed groups, organized groups and unidentified people.
The full Amharic report lists the incidents by date and place. In Gambella, an attack in Terfam kebele of Itang special woreda on December 24, 2025 killed 64 people and injured 68, among them women, children, older people and people with disabilities. In Bulen woreda of Benishangul-Gumuz, fighters of the Oromo Liberation Army opened fire on residents of Bakuji on November 22, 2025 and killed 40 people. In Metema woreda of West Gondar, the report said members of a group “commonly called Fano” killed 21 Qemant villagers on August 7, 2025 in revenge for an alleged raid on a monastery, burned 60 homes and displaced about 450 people. In Oromia, it said an armed group “commonly called Fano” killed 22 people in Abe Dongoro woreda of Horo Guduru Wollega on August 30, 2025, and government forces killed seven people in Munesa woreda of Arsi Zone on November 6, 2025. In Addis Ababa, a young man taken by police “for questioning” to the Shiro Meda police station, known as Station 02, was killed by a police officer at the station gate on May 7, 2026.
On detention, the report said “current affairs” and allegations of supporting armed groups were used as grounds for unlawful arrests in conflict areas of Amhara and Benishangul-Gumuz. It described a “widespread practice” in Amhara of detaining people on grounds of “current affairs” or accusations of being “Fano cells.” In some parts of Oromia, it said, government security forces unlawfully detained people, including children, “under the pretext of ‘military recruitment,'” against the rules for recruiting members of the National Defense Forces. The commission said its intervention freed some of them. It also reported forced conscription in parts of Tigray, ransom kidnappings in Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella and Oromia, and complaints of enforced disappearance in Amhara, South Ethiopia and Oromia. Its monitors visited 98 prisons, 649 police stations and 10 unofficial detention places during the year.
The commission received 1,805 complaints from 2,046 people. More than half, 56.1 percent, were about civil and political rights, mostly the treatment of people in custody, loss of liberty, slow trials and killings. Regional and city police commissions drew the most complaints, followed by the Ministry of National Defense, the Federal Police Commission and the Federal Prisons Commission.
On the press, the report said the enforced disappearance and pretrial detention of journalists by government security forces, bans on reporting rights violations and rules forcing journalists to get permission for information “continued to pose significant restrictions.” The full report said security officials in South Ethiopia were forcing journalists, including those working for foreign media, to bring permits from zone administrators, and that officials in Central Ethiopia ordered state-funded media to stop an investigation into unpaid civil servant salaries. In Tigray, it said, regional security forces harassed and beat reporters and took their cameras.
The commission counted some gains. It said more than 600 prisoners were released on September 10, 2026, and that over 729 people had been freed in total. According to the executive summary, prisoners convicted of serious crimes were pardoned, while prosecutors conditionally dropped charges against people still on trial. It also welcomed peace deals with armed groups in Benishangul-Gumuz and lower tension in districts on the Afar and Amhara border, but said formal transitional justice remained suspended.
The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) gave a harsher account of the release process on October 9. It said that political detainees, journalists and activists who refused to sign what it called self-incriminating pardon documents before the Ethiopian New Year faced transfers to unknown places, poor sanitation and verbal threats, borkena reported. Asked about those still in custody, Birhanu said most releases were the formal dropping of charges rather than pardons, and that people still held had not submitted the formal requests needed to end their cases, according to borkena. Sheger FM, reporting on the same briefing in Amharic, said Birhanu listed the release “by pardon” of hundreds of prisoners who were on trial among the year’s positive steps.
At the briefing, Birhanu also answered questions about the north. He told DW Amharic that the commission treats the fighting in Tigray and nearby areas of Amhara and Afar as an “armed conflict,” not a war, under international definitions. Asked about Eritrea’s role, he said the commission was “collecting information” and could not say “who is with whom.” He said the commission’s Tigray office had been closed during the recent telecom shutdown. On forced recruitment, he said such abuses had been carried out repeatedly in Tigray, but the commission could not confirm forced recruitment by the national army outside its normal procedures, DW reported. The Reporter wrote that he “downplayed rumors concerning forced conscription” despite widespread public complaints.
Ethiopian outlets carried the findings on X. Addis Standard wrote that the report “sheds light on civilian killings, arbitrary detention, kidnappings and disappearances across Ethiopia.” Ethiopia Insider posted video of Birhanu’s answers to reporters, and borkena headlined that the commission had confirmed security forces executed civilians over alleged rebel ties in Oromia. The commission itself posted the full report and summaries in Amharic and English.
The report came a day after 36 rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, asked the UN Human Rights Council to hold a special session on Ethiopia. Martin Plaut, a fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, shared their joint letter on X. On Friday, Mereja reported that the US State Department’s trafficking report said the Ethiopian National Defense Force used child soldiers. The Ethiopian Gov’t had not responded publicly to the commission’s report by Saturday afternoon.
Sources:
- Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (executive summary, English)
- Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (full annual report, Amharic)
- Ethiopian Human Rights Commission on X
- The Reporter
- DW Amharic
- borkena (EPRP statement)
- borkena (Oromia findings)
- Sheger FM on X
- Sheger FM (briefing report)
- Addis Standard on X
- Ethiopia Insider on X
- borkena on X
- Human Rights Watch (joint letter to the UN Human Rights Council)
- Martin Plaut on X
- Mereja (US trafficking report)