Middle East & Africa | Falling apart

Two ethnic revolts rack Ethiopia at the same time

A country of 120m people is fraying

ETHIOPIA, AMHARA REGION -JANUARY 19 : on the road to Kobo, Fano's in civilian clothes move up to the front line with their Kalashnikov rifles. These groups of ultra-nationalist Ahmaras are photographed for Paris Match on January 19, 2022 in Ethiopia. (Photo by Alvaro Canovas/Paris Match via Getty Images)
|Nairobi

After a brief stalemate, the civil war in Ethiopia may be poised to get even bloodier. A humanitarian truce to let food be brought to the besieged region of Tigray was broken on August 24th, raising fears of a return to all-out war in the north (see map). At the same time, rebellions around the western and southern edges of Ethiopia threaten to fragment the entire country. In particular, the Oromo Liberation Army (ola), a rebel group which says it is fighting for the self-determination of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, has been weakening the grip of the federal government which sits in Addis Ababa, the capital.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Falling apart”

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