{"id":838274,"date":"2026-10-27T15:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T19:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=838274"},"modified":"2026-10-27T15:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T19:54:12","slug":"what-is-fano-the-amhara-traditional-self-defense-movement-now-fighting-ethiopias-central-govt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/838274","title":{"rendered":"What is Fano? The Amhara traditional self-defense movement now fighting Ethiopia’s central gov’t"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Fano Mesafint Tesfu speaks to the media as fighters look on, 1 September 2022 (Photo: Mereja Media) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>Fano is a decentralized Amhara militia movement, raised from villages that see themselves under threat, and since August 2023 it has been fighting Ethiopia’s central government across the Amhara region.<\/p>\n

For many outside Ethiopia, its recent wars mean Tigray. Yet the war in Amhara, a region of over 50 million people according to an estimate by Mereja TV, has become the more intense conflict in northern Ethiopia. The International Crisis Group called it “Ethiopia’s ominous new war” in November 2023.<\/p>\n

A tradition older than the state’s army<\/h2>\n

In Amharic, fano describes a volunteer who takes up arms to defend his community without being part of a regular army. Al Jazeera, reporting from the region in March 2025, translated it as “freedom fighter” and described Fano today as “a largely informal coalition of several volunteer militias” with “widespread popular support.”<\/p>\n

At Adwa in March 1896, Emperor Menelik II defeated an invading Italian army with a force drawn largely from peasant levies and volunteers. Historians including Raymond Jonas, author of The Battle of Adwa (2011), describe it as a decisive African defeat of a European colonial army. Fano’s supporters and many Amhara historians go further, arguing that this tradition of armed volunteers is the primary reason Ethiopia was never colonized.<\/p>\n

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An Ethiopian painting of the Battle of Adwa, 1896, showing Emperor Menelik II and Empress Taytu (unknown artist, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>The tradition returned when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. With Emperor Haile Selassie in exile, resistance passed to rural fighters known as the arbegnoch, or patriots. Bahir Dar University researchers found that the patriots fought as guerrillas, relying on ambushes and hit and run raids.<\/p>\n

\"Ethiopian

Ethiopian patriots photographed on 3 October 1935, the day Italy invaded Ethiopia (unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, public domain) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>\n

Historic Fano leaders<\/h2>\n

The resistance of 1936 to 1941 produced many Fano leaders, celebrated in songs and place names across the Amhara region. Ras Abebe Aregay is among the most prominent. The commanders below are only some of them, and today’s commanders take their titles and unit names from that generation.<\/p>\n

Ras Abebe Aregay<\/strong> led the resistance in northern Shewa. According to the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, he was born around 1903, was a grandson of Menelik’s general Ras Gobena Dachi, and commanded the Addis Ababa city police before the invasion. After the Italians entered the capital in May 1936, he built an armed base in his home district and became the leading patriot commander in northern Shewa. The encyclopedia says he drew the Italians into negotiations only to buy time, then broke them off once he had regrouped. He led 15,000 fighters when the emperor returned to Addis Ababa on 5 May 1941 and later served as defense minister and head of the Council of Ministers.<\/p>\n

\"Ras

Ras Abebe Aregay, undated portrait (unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, public domain) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>Dejazmach Belay Zeleke<\/strong> led the patriots of Gojjam. Born in Bichena in 1909, he first appears in Italian records in August 1937 after his fighters ambushed an Italian column. The Bahir Dar University study says he organized tens of thousands of patriots in parts of Gojjam, Wollo and Shewa, with a clear chain of command and district chiefs.<\/p>\n

\"Dejazmach

Dejazmach Belay Zeleke, 1940 (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>Lij Haile Mariam Mammo<\/strong>, born in Selale in Shewa in 1904, was wounded at the Battle of Maychew in March 1936 and then raised about 500 local fighters. His ambush of an Italian column at Chacha, near Debre Berhan, on 4 May 1936 led the historian Salome Gebre Egziabher to call him “the first Patriot of Shewa.” He was mortally wounded in June 1938 while trying to break an Italian encirclement at Gorfo.<\/p>\n

\"Lij

Lij Haile Mariam Mammo, undated portrait (credit unknown, Mereja Media archive) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>Dejazmach Geresu Duki<\/strong>, born in Waliso in western Shewa in 1905, raised a force among his Shewa kinsmen and ambushed an Italian column at Waliso in November 1937. Italian authorities put a bounty of 50,000 lire on his head, and in January 1939 Benito Mussolini named him with Abebe Aregay among the leaders to be “liquidated.” He survived, helped liberate Jimma in 1941 and later sat in the imperial senate.<\/p>\n

Other names recur in the Fano histories of every province. In Begemder, Ras Amoraw Wubneh<\/strong> kept up a steady campaign of ambushes against Italian garrisons from Gondar to the Semien mountains. Ras Mesfin Sileshi<\/strong>, later one of the most powerful nobles of the imperial court, commanded large patriot forces in Shewa and Arsi and coordinated uprisings there. In Lasta and Wollo, Dejazmach Hailu Kebede<\/strong> led a fierce resistance until he was killed in 1937; the Italians displayed his severed head in public as a warning.<\/p>\n

Prominent Fano women include: Woizero Kebedech Seyoum<\/strong>, the widow of Dejazmach Aberra Kassa, whom the Italians executed in December 1936, took over her husband’s troops in Shewa and led them in the field against Italian columns. Woizero Shewareged Gedle<\/strong> worked from inside occupied Addis Ababa, running underground networks that moved weapons, intelligence and medical supplies to guerrilla units in the countryside; she was arrested and deported by the Italians. Woizero Lekyelesh Beyan<\/strong> fought as a field commander in central Ethiopia and is remembered in a widely reproduced photograph showing her armed, with her infant son on her back.<\/p>\n

\"Woizero

Woizero Kebedech Seyoum, 1935 (Nega Tegegn, Wikimedia Commons, public domain) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>\n

A people’s tradition, not an organization<\/h2>\n

Supporters and historians of the movement argue that Fano cannot be separated from the Amhara people, and to a lesser extent from the Gurage, Wolayita and other peoples of Shewa who fought alongside them. In this view, Fano is not a party or a standing army but a popular tradition, in which farmers take up arms when their communities are threatened and return to the land when the threat passes. Geresu Duki’s Shewan fighters, who included Amhara, Gurage, Oromo, Wolayita and others, are often cited as evidence that it reached beyond one community.<\/p>\n

Why Fano rose<\/h2>\n

The modern movement grew out of Amhara youth activism around 2018, which is said to have played a crucial role in bringing Abiy Ahmed to power. When war broke out between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the former ruling party, in November 2020, tens of thousands of Fano fighters joined federal and Amhara forces against the TPLF and never demobilized, according to Crisis Group. Despite some reports, Fano never entered the Tigray region because its fighters do not leave their communities. It fought the TPLF when TPLF forces entered the Amhara region.<\/p>\n

What turned activism into armed mobilization was a wave of killings of Amhara civilians outside the Amhara region after 2018. In Metekel, Benishangul-Gumuz Region, armed men attacked Bekoji village before dawn on 23 December 2020, shooting residents and setting homes on fire as they slept; the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission counted 207 dead. The area, home to Amhara, Oromo, and Shinasha residents, had suffered a string of attacks in the months before. In Oromia, the commission found that the unrest after the killing of the singer Hachalu Hundessa in June 2020 left 123 people dead, and that attackers chose victims for their ethnic or religious identity, among them Amhara and Orthodox Christians, in what it called crimes against humanity. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church said 67 of its followers had been specifically targeted. The worst occurred at Tole in West Wollega on June 18, 2022. Human Rights Watch said gunmen killed about 400 Amhara civilians over eight hours, many of them women and children, while federal forces stationed nearby did not arrive until hours later. Amnesty International quoted a local official putting the toll at 450 or more.<\/p>\n

Mereja TV, other Ethiopian media organizations, and Amhara scholars see a deeper pattern. They view the Oromummaa ideology of Abiy Ahmed’s government as having unleashed a pogrom against Amhara and Orthodox Christians unseen since Ahmed Gragn invaded Shewa and burned its churches in the 16th century, a campaign the Ottoman Empire backed with arms. They note that Abiy Ahmed’s government is armed in part by Turkey, the Ottoman Empire’s heir. Reuters reported in 2021 that Ethiopia sought Turkish Bayraktar TB2 armed drones, and that Turkish defense exports to Ethiopia rose from virtually nothing to almost $95 million in the first 11 months of that year, as U.S. officials raised concerns about the sales. The government rejects any claim that it targets Amhara, blaming the killings in Wollega on the OLA, which it designates a terrorist group. However, no evidence suggests the OLA can commit such widespread atrocities without backing from a larger force, the government itself, as former Oromia security chief General Kemal Gelchu noted in a 2020 interview with Andafta. OLA itself denies it.<\/p>\n

The 2023 disarmament was the final straw. The November 2022 Pretoria agreement, which ended the Tigray war, had already left many Amhara feeling “betrayed,” according to Crisis Group. In April 2023, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered regional special forces to be folded into the federal army and police, while leaving the Oromo regional forces intact. Many members of the Amhara regional forces refused and “took to the bush with their weapons to join Amhara militias known as Fano,” Crisis Group wrote.<\/p>\n

The insurgency<\/h2>\n

In early August 2023, Fano briefly took parts of Bahir Dar, Gondar and Lalibela, Crisis Group reported. The government declared a state of emergency that Human Rights Watch says placed the region under military rule. It expired in June 2024, but restrictions remain.<\/p>\n

How Fano is organized<\/h2>\n

Fano still fights largely as regional commands rather than a single army. In May 2025, four major forces announced the Amhara Fano National Force (AFNF) and named no single leader. In January 2026, the main factions merged into the Amhara Fano National Movement (AFNM). Zemene Kassie is its current chairman, a post the movement says rotates among its leaders, and Mereja’s reporting describes field operations as led by regional commanders. Named units now include the Wollo Fano Menelik Command, the Shewa Fano Asaminew Command, the Gojjam Fano Tewodros Command, and the Gondar Fano Belay Command.<\/p>\n

\"Fighters

Fighters listen to Amhara Fano National Movement leaders, including Zemene Kassie and Henok Adisse, at what the poster describes as an eastern front meeting, posted 16 October 2026 (Photo: @Samibebi2 via X)<\/p><\/div>\n

The leaders today<\/h2>\n

Mereja TV describes Fano Mesafint Tesfu<\/strong> of Gondar, the movement’s most famous and most senior commander in age, as the current symbol of Fano. However, field command rests with four regional leaders.<\/p>\n

\"Current

Current Fano leaders, left to right: Desalegn Siyasbshewa of Shewa, Habte Wolde of Gondar, Zemene Kassie of Gojjam and Mere Wodajo of Wollo. (Photo: Mereja Media)<\/p><\/div>\n

Zemene Kassie (Gojjam).<\/strong> Zemene led Amhara youth groups before taking up arms and built a Fano force during the Tigray war that fought alongside federal troops in Wollo. He was detained in Bahir Dar on 11 September 2022 over the killing of a police officer, and a court acquitted him for lack of evidence in June 2023, Addis Standard reported, citing DW. He went on to lead the Gojjam Fano command. In a 2022 interview, he said he had thousands of fighters under his command who would “shortly shift into millions.” Accounts on X describe him meeting fighters in the field in October 2026.<\/p>\n

\"Zemene

Zemene Kassie addresses a crowd, in a photo uploaded 2 April 2025 (Mgaethio, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>Habte Wolde (Gondar).<\/strong> Born and raised in Gondar, Habte leads the Amhara Fano Gondar Command. He began organizing Gondar Fano around 2019 and 2020, after General Asaminew Tsige died, under whose command Habte served.\u00a0 When the Tigray war reached Amhara, his fighters answered the government’s call to arms, and his group grew from a battalion into a full command.<\/p>\n

\"Habte

Habte Wolde, in an image published 5 August 2024 (Photo: BBC Amharic) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>Mere Wodajo (Wollo).<\/strong> A native of Raya Kobo, he spent years in exile in Saudi Arabia before returning in 2018, according to profiles drawn from BBC Amharic reporting. He organized Fano groups in Raya and eastern Amhara during the Tigray war and now leads the Wollo command, where some of 2026’s heaviest fighting has taken place.<\/p>\n

\"Mere

Mere Wodajo, in a photo posted 13 October 2026 (Photo: @chalederebe29 via X; date of photo unknown) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>Desalegn Siyasbshewa (Shewa).<\/strong> A civil engineer and graduate of Debre Berhan University, Desalegn currently leads Shewa Fano. He heads the Shewa Province Fano Asaminew Command and was among the four founders of the 2025 and 2026 Fano alliances. His fighters control a large swath of Shewa territory, within reach of the roads to Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n

\"Desalegn

Desalegn Siyasbshewa, in a still from a video posted 8 September 2025; the flag background appears to have been added by the channel (Photo: Kessem Media via YouTube) [file photo]<\/p><\/div>\n

What Fano says it wants<\/h2>\n

Fano groups describe their war as a “struggle for existence” for the Amhara people. The May 2025 founding statement, as reported by Borkena, rested on “Amhara nationalism” while stressing a “firm stand on the unity of Ethiopia.” Al Jazeera quoted Bantayehu Shiferaw Chanie, a research associate at the Center for International Policy Studies in Ottawa, as saying the conflict will continue unless Fano gains genuine political representation.<\/p>\n

On 22 October 2026, the movement’s foreign affairs account on X accused the government of attacking civilians “from schools to banks, from tea houses to homes.”<\/p>\n

Fano fighters avoid engaging government forces in cities to preserve the Amhara region’s infrastructure, which the government has shown no hesitation to bomb with drones and fighter jets. It seems to be one of the main reasons the U.S. Government refused to accuse Fano of terrorism despite persistent demands by Abiy Ahmed’s regime.<\/p>\n

How the tech platforms treat Fano<\/h2>\n

Ethiopian journalists, Fano supporters and Mereja TV say Facebook, YouTube and TikTok will not publicly declare Fano a dangerous organization, yet they delete pages, accounts and channels that play current and historical Fano songs or that report or talk about Fano and the Amhara uprising. They argue that this ignores Ethiopia’s history, since Fano is a centuries-old tradition of community self-defense.<\/p>\n

Meta’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy bars groups that “proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence,” but Meta does not publish its list. Crisis Group wrote in 2022 that, according to an October 2021 leak, Meta listed the Oromo Liberation Army as dangerous but not Fano. Mereja says Facebook shut down the Mereja Media Page (about 4 million followers) and the Mereja TV Page (about 1 million) in July 2024. Facebook gave no public reason; Mereja says its coverage of Fano caused it.<\/p>\n

On YouTube, Google said it terminated 21 channels sharing Amharic political content in late 2023 over “coordinated influence operations linked to Ethiopia,” without naming any group. Exiled journalists and content creators who cover Fano, many of them abroad after colleagues were jailed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government, have reported repeated removals. Ethiopian Satellite Network said YouTube terminated its main channel and two others in July 2025, citing only vague violations of community standards. The Association of Ethiopian Professionals and Activists listed Ethio 251 Media, Ghion TV Multimedia and Mereja TV among outlets removed “without warning or justification.” Mereja TV said in a statement that Ethiopian Federal Police shut down its Addis Ababa headquarters in 2022 and jailed eight of its program hosts, among them Meskerem Abera, host of the weekly program Ethio Nikat. The program also ran on its own YouTube channel<\/a>, which Mereja TV says went silent when she was jailed. The Committee to Protect Journalists says Meskerem was arrested in April 2023, charged with terrorism, and was still in prison in December 2025.<\/p>\n

On TikTok, Eyerusalem Tesemma, a news anchor at Zegabi Media TV, wrote on X on 17 October 2026 that more than 400 Amhara creators were banned in a single day, including her, “just for mentioning Fano or using Fano music.” “Fano is an Amhara historical and cultural identity, not a banned group or a political label,” she wrote. A TikTok spokesperson for East Africa, Pereruan Kenana, told Mereja the company was investigating “to check what the issue might be.”<\/p>\n

The U.S. Government has not designated Fano a terrorist or dangerous organization; it does not appear on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, its Terrorist Exclusion List or the Treasury’s sanctions list. In May 2025, the U.S. ambassador, Ervin Massinga, urged Fano “to come forward with realistic and peaceful objectives” and called on the federal government to seek peaceful resolutions, APA News reported.<\/p>\n

Where things stand in 2026<\/h2>\n

On 21 September 2026, seven armed groups, including Fano and the TPLF, former enemies, announced an alliance to overthrow the government, Reuters reported. In October, residents told DW of heavy fighting near Sanqa in North Wollo and new drone strikes in Wollo. The Abay Times reported intensified fighting across Wollo and Shewa.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h2>\n