‘We only want peace’: Pacific community in the midst of the conflict between Amhara Ethiopia | News of the conflict

AWRA Amba, Ethiopia – Aregash Nura pointed to a valid green landscape in the central regions of Amhar Ethiopia. “We used to watch the sunset from the hill,” the sigh said. “But no more.”

These days, it is too dangerous to leave the safety of the village, according to Nuru, a 30-year accountant and a local guide. Shots can sometimes be heard from far away. The locals were abducted. The schools were forced to close.

“The political situation has changed everything,” he added, staring at the ground in sadness.

For decades violent insecurity and conflict hit many parts of Ethiopia – nothing more than during Conflict of Tiger Between 2020 and 2022, which led to the death of about 600,000 people in the East African state, estimates found.

But one place that remained relatively intact was the village of the AWRA Amba, set up in the Mountain of Amhare. The community, which was founded in the 1970s, is a pioneering utopian project on about 600 people living strictly egalitarian rules, including the same gender division.

Over the years, the AWRA Amba has received recognition for its efforts, winning awards for its approach to resolving conflict-what does special meetings of disputes and democratically selected committees and his emphasis on peace. Officers of the Ethiopian Government and international bodies such as the United Nations, the Red Cross and Oxfam have come to observe the famous example of the community.

However, over the last two years, the deadly conflict has taken over in Amhari-Regija House in the UNESCO protected Church of Lalibel and the historical fortress of Gondara-Budda, that the armed group of Fano violently clashed with the National Defense of the Federal Government (ENDF).

Ever since the conflict began in April 2023, after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed tried to dissolve regional forces in the police or federal army, there have been reports on mass violence based on gender and thousands of murders committed by Endf and Fano, which require complete control of the territory they claim to be theirs.

A non -profit international crisis group called the development of a “ominous new war.” Amnesty International has invited global attention to this “human rights crisis”, while Human Rights Watch condemned the “war crimes” committed by Endf.

“There is a trauma in the region, there has been a devastation,” said Bantayehu Shifaraw Chanie, a research associate at the Ottawa International Policy Center in Ottawa, Canada, who worked from Amhare, and in Ethiopia he worked until July 2023.

In turn, the AWRA Amba Pacific Community was caught in the cross -fire of a spiral conflict.

The economy overturned

Nuru is a member of the Community Community, which together combines all its income and resources. They use funds for projects, including the Home for the Elderly, orphans for orphans and charity organization to help people in need. But once a completed, self -sufficient economy turned her head, Nura said.

The AWRA Amba once welcomed thousands of visitors to the annually domestic and international tourists, as well as schoolchildren classes could stay on the spot and buy community products, such as hand-coated garments and textiles.

But overnight, that revenue evaporated.

“There used to be many foreigners who came to visit,” Mohammed said, 25, another former tourist guide at the AWRA Amba. “We were so happy to share our story of peace with them. But now they are gone. It’s too dangerous to come here. “

Community members are even afraid of traveling to markets to sell their agricultural products, such as corn and Teff, a popular grain in Ethiopia, since gang robberies are now common because of the prevailing state of iniquity.

“The trade has influenced,” said Ayalsew Zumra, a 39-year-old community member. “It’s hard to go to other cities, sometimes it’s not safe. It means we can’t transport a product. But let’s do the most [of our] income.”

Members of the community, who live in the modest homes of Adobe and Oradju fields of ox, are also influenced by a conflict that is underway in other ways. In attempts to interfere with the rebels, the Ethiopian government routinely blocks the Internet across the Amhar region, the second most influential in the country.

Alam Nuruhak, a 24-year-old who studied him at the University, returned to the AWRA Amba, where he was born and grew up to visit his family. However, because of the darkening, he could not study.

“It’s hard to do anything here,” Nuruhak said.

The community was also forced to close the school, for which it provided half the funds during the construction of 2019 and then donated to the state, due to the complexity of the conflict and this perceived connection with the Government. Last year, Fano Fighters went down to the AWRA Amba and asked for classes to stop immediately.

“The government wanted the school to continue operating, but other forces [Fano] I didn’t want to continue the learning process, “Zumra said.” The conflict … affects everything. “

Destruction will cause a ‘greater crisis’

Then the terror passed through the AWRA Amba last year, when the villagers abducted an unidentified armed men who demanded a million Ethiopian birr ($ 7,900) for a return – a huge amount that the community could not fully pay.

Meanwhile, the founder of the community, Zumra Nura and his son fled to the capital of Ethiopia Addis Ababa. The locals say his son was also the target of attempts to abduction while armed people one day came in search of him – but he was out of town.

Chanie, a researcher, says that the conflict in Amhari will persist if there is a significant turn in Abiy’s policy according to Fanou and that they were given – as the Prime Minister promised – a true political presentation.

Fano fought next to federal troops during a two -year conflict in Tigay, but after that, people from Amhara outside Abiy’s party, including fano were not included in the negotiations that resulted in in PROTOGRY MIRANTY AGREEMENT In November 2022.

Fanoa roots – Amhari expression that means “freedom fighter” – date from the forces that have increased against the Italian fascist occupiers of Ethiopia in 1930, but today it is mostly an informal coalition of several volunteer militia in the region that has gained joint support in its fight for Amhar interests.

“Amharas’s political representation in Abiy’s ethnic federalism is missing,” Chanie said.

“The Prime Minister and his government did not keep his promises. He was just preserved by his power. He consolidated his power, so it is just one man.”

For now, the conflict is furious in Amhari.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in June 2024 has been found to have found the federal forces performed by torture, rape, extrajudicial executions and murders of civilians, and that militia are fans responsible for civilian murders, attacks on civil objects and illegal arrests. There are allegedly about four million children out of school for violence in the region.

“As we see in Amhari, nothing has been resolved by military actions. So, we need a clear, serious conversation between political groups,” Chanie said. “If the conflict continues, destruction will result in a larger crisis. The state collapse could lead to a higher risk of regional insecurity.”

Meanwhile, the AWRA Amba people in the remote highlands of Ethiopia dream of a quiet resolution.

“We just want peace,” said Zumra Nura founder, who is now 76, for Al Jazeera in her current home in Addis Ababi. “We believe that all conflicts can be resolved with reasonable discussion and discussion.”

It’s not the first time the AWRA Amba community has been caught in a political quarrel, he added.

In 1988, during the Dergovo regime, a communist military government that ruled Ethiopia for almost two decades, she was charged with supporting opposition and were forced to leave their country.

The villagers could only return in 1993, two years after the end of the authoritarian time of the regime came.

“We have survived struggles in the past,” Nura said. “Working together, looking at what joins us, not what divides us, we can stop this suffering and bring peace in Ethiopia.”