Ethiopia’s army said on Friday its troops had killed more than 300 fighters from the Fano armed group in two days of clashes in the northern Amhara region, as fears have emerged of a wider regional war.
The Fano militia fought alongside the army and Eritrean forces in a two-year civil war that pitted Addis Ababa against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the northern region of Tigray.
Since then Eritrea and Ethiopia have fallen out, the former was excluded from peace talks to end that war in November 2022.
Fears of a new war emerged in recent weeks after Eritrea reportedly ordered a nationwide military mobilisation and Ethiopia deployed troops toward their border.
Fighting between Ethiopia’s army and Fano – a loose collection of militias with no centralised leadership – broke out in July 2023, fuelled in part by a sense of betrayal among many Amharas about the terms of the 2022 peace deal.