Wollega under siege: Unravelling layers of violence, displacement in Western Oromia
According to one study, up to 80,000 “illegal” settlers migrated from Gojjam and settled in Gidda Ayana, Kiramu, Limmu, and Horro Guduru between 1997 and 2003 alone.
By Asebe Regassa and Gemechu Abeshu
Since 2020, violence in Western Oromia — particularly in the East Wollega and Horo Guduru Wollega zones—has destabilised the region, displacing hundreds of thousands, claiming thousands of lives, and triggering a severe economic crisis.
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According to a 2022 report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 200,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Horo Guduru and East Wollega were in critical need of food aid.
While multiple actors are involved in the violence, various sources indicate that attacks have been primarily carried out by armed militias from the Amhara ethnic group, including those who resettled in the area since the 1960s and members of the Fano armed group who infiltrated from the neighbouring Amhara region. However, the conflict extends beyond a localized inter-group dispute, involving broader and more complex political motives and strategies.
To help frame what is happening to the people in East and Horro Guduru Wollega zones, we’ll draw insights from two key concepts: ‘necropolitics’ and ‘generalised violence.’
Necropolitics is a concept that explains how governments (dictatorial regimes) and armed groups allied with them decide selectively who lives and who dies, using force to maintain control. On the other hand, generalised violence refers to the use of force to punish entire communities.
These concepts help us see how both the Ethiopian government and its auxiliaries have collectively punished the people of East and Horro Guduru Wollega over the past five years.
Because of the socio-economic, security, and political consequences of the violence, it is imperative to provide a broader context, historical analysis, and contemporary dynamics. This piece aims to describe the historical background of the resettlement programmes, unpacking the complex interplay of actors involved in the violence and their interests, and providing possible recommendations to ensure peaceful coexistence and security of the people.
Historically, the early Amhara settlement in Wollega started during the reign of Emperor Menelik II, who brought members of his ruling class in the late nineteenth century to “pacify the Oromo,” as part of the phenomenon described as a process of ‘internal colonialism’ or a phenomenon that befits what Veracini calls “settler colonialism.”
Under Emperor Haile Selassie I (1930-1974), the first round of Amhara settlers moved to the area through the imperial regime’s organised resettlement program, particularly as part of the Third Five-Year Development Plan (1968-1973). During this time, the Amhara from the former Wollo province were resettled in the lowlands of today’s East Wollega zone, such as Gidda Ayana in 1971, at a place called Gutin.
The second wave of settlers came during the mid-1980s under the military rule as part of the government’s response to the 1984/85 famine that devastated northern parts of Ethiopia.
As a result, resettlement was seen as one way of putting areas that they labelled ‘no man’s land’ to use. Such representation of Oromo lands as “underused,” “no-man’s land,” and “empty” land reinforced a massive resettlement program during the military regime in the aftermath of the 1984 famine — an event that devastated human beings and livestock in Northern Ethiopia.
The third wave of settlers came after 1996/7, mainly from Gojjam, a period when a massive land redistribution took place in the Amhara region. This wave of settlement took place despite the post-1991 resettlement policy that discourages inter-regional resettlement. This massive settlement of Amhara in Western Oromia took place through an informal and illegal process.
According to one study, up to 80,000 “illegal” settlers migrated from Gojjam and settled in Gidda Ayana, Kiramu, Limmu, and Horro Guduru between 1997 and 2003 alone.
Although they were illegal, the Oromia regional state and its local authorities facilitated mechanisms of accommodating the settlers, including facilitating access to special schools to attend in their mother tongue language, in contrast to the constitution of the Oromia regional state that stipulates primary education to be offered in Afaan Oromoo.
Although the inter-group relations between Amhara settlers and native Oromo inhabitants have been peaceful to a larger extent, Amhara settlers eventually resorted to violence against the host community as a means of territorial expansion and to achieve political goals. From this angle, the current conflict is also a continuation of that previous injustice.
The first major conflict occurred in 2001 in the then Gidda Kiramu district when the settlers raised the question of self-rule and started expelling the Oromo from those vicinities. According to the US State Department report published in 2001, over 10,000 people had been forcefully displaced due to the violence, over 500 houses were burned, and more than 3,000 heads of cattle were stolen.
During this conflict and subsequent clashes, the Oromo were outgunned by their counterparts. The conflict became between two unbalanced forces because the native Oromo farmers were disarmed of any weapon, including traditional spears, while the settlers were armed without restriction.
State-sanctioned chaos?
Different groups are involved in deciding who lives and who dies in Wollega while also enforcing widespread collective punishment. To simplify, we can categorise these actors into three levels: macro (national), mezzo (regional), and micro (local). Each level plays a different but related role in the violence and instability in Western Oromia.
At the macro level, the Ethiopian federal government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and the National Defense Forces (ENDF) are fighting the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), with the government labelling the OLA a terrorist organization to justify military action that has included brutal treatment of civilians and their properties. This strategy, as illustrated by a statement from a senior government official about “drying up the ocean” to eliminate the OLA, suggests a policy of collective punishment and necropolitics.
At the mezzo level, Koree Nageenyaa, a secretive security group composed of Prosperity Party (PP) officials, regional security forces, and local administrators, is reportedly responsible for human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings and forced displacement, employing terror as a control mechanism.
At the micro level, Gaachana Sirna, a government-armed militia, operates in the East Wollega and Horo Guduru Wollega zones, suppressing dissent, particularly against the OLA and its support base.
This militia has been accused of serious abuses, including killings and arbitrary detentions. However, there is a complex interplay of actors that entangles these three levels directly or indirectly: the Amhara militia and Fano.
Fano’s shadow war
A major actor that threatens the life and security of people in the East Wollega and Horo Guduru Wollega zones is the Fano, an Amhara armed group that has expanded into Western Oromia from its main base in the Amhara region.
Fano operation in these areas has been driven by the ideology of establishing ‘Greater Amhara’ — an expansionist belief that claims parts of Wollega as historically Amhara land.
Initially, the Ethiopian government supported (and armed) Fano during the war in Tigray and also to fight the OLA to reduce the reliance of the civilians on state security forces. However, the relationship between the Fano and the federal government has soured, and the Fano has increasingly pursued its own goals, culminating in the formation of what came to be known as ‘Wallega (Bizamo) Fano Command’ in December 2024.
Fano’s actions appear to be driven by an expansionist ideology, one that seeks territorial expansion by asserting Amhara superiority and historical claims over the East Wollega and Horo Guduru Wollega zones. This mirrors historical patterns where similar ideologies have fueled conflicts globally.
In Serbia, nationalist myths were used to justify violence against other ethnic groups, culminating in the Balkan crisis. For example, Slobodan Milošević’s pursuit of a “Greater Serbia” aimed to unite all Serbs under a single state by annexing territories from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo.
This ideology fuelled ethnic cleansing campaigns, including the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, where over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were systematically executed by Bosnian Serb forces.
In Sudan, the Janjaweed militia, driven by a belief in Arab supremacy, carried out mass killings in Darfur. In both instances, elites shared a common thread: the justification of territorial expansion through violent force, cloaked in claims of historical right and/or ethnic superiority.
Likewise, Amhara elites, including Fano leadership, argue that Wollega was historically Amhara land before the Oromo settled in the area. This is, in fact, part of an alarming narrative and movement aimed at creating a ‘Greater Amhara’ by taking territories such as Metekel in Benishangul Gumuz, Wollega and Dharra in Oromia, Walkayt and Raya in Tigray, and the capital city, Finfinne (Addis Abeba). This imperial and expansionist narrative resurfaced after 2018 following the rise to power of Abiy Ahmed and his political vision of restoring “Greater Ethiopia.”.
These narratives build on a decades-old demand by local Amhara migrant settlers in Wollega for a special status (such as a special zone) for Amhara communities in Western Oromia.
The Fano operate in coordination and alliance with locally organized Amhara militia, most of whom were born and grew up in the region, and some moved to the areas in the last couple of years.
Because of the government’s interest in using these groups as an ally in its fight against the OLA, the local Amhara farmers were partly armed by the Oromia regional state, while others bought firearms and were being tolerated from being disarmed, unlike the measures taken against the Oromo inhabitants.
Reports also indicate that the attacks by Amhara militias are not isolated and localized incidents; rather, they are part of Amhara forces, including the Amhara regional government’s displeasure with the federal government’s agreement with Tigray.
Escalating violence, widespread abuses
Fano’s expansion into the East Wollega and Horo Guduru Wollega zones, alongside local armed Amhara militia, has been linked to severe human rights abuses, including massacres, forced displacement, and sexual violence.
Documented incidents include the killing of 30 Oromo civilians in East Wollega, the massacre of 60 civilians in Agamsa town, and the killing of 30 civilians in Abuna villages, the killing of a district court judge and mass displacement, the murder of 17 Oromo civilians in November 2023, and the killing of 15 civilians in Horo Guduru Wollega in August 2024.
Furthermore, reports describe rape as a weapon of war, with the Oromia Physicians Association noting an increase in suicides following public sexual violence allegedly committed by Fano members.
The conflict has created a severe humanitarian crisis. OCHA estimates that out of the over 1.5 million people displaced in Oromia, 750,000 people are displaced due to the violence in the East Wollega and Horo Guduru Wollega zones. Many of these IDPs face food shortages and lack access to medical care.
The socio-economic implication of the violence is multidimensional. Firstly, displacement and insecurity have deteriorated economic activities (farming and business) in both zones, leading to famine and food insecurity. The people of Wollega have never been subjected to famine throughout history, but now people are on the brink of serious famine.
In addition, insecurity has almost disconnected rural villages from towns and towns from major cities, leading to serious challenges in accessing basic facilities, including health centres. Several schools were closed or became dysfunctional due to security problems, making the region—once a place of excellence—an example of dropouts and failure.
The ongoing violence in the East Wollega and Horo Guduru Wollega zones is a direct result of state-supported necropolitics and generalized violence, with actors at all levels contributing to collective punishment.
While the Ethiopian government has used its own force and left civilians to the violence perpetrated by the Amhara force to suppress dissent, the Fano and local Amhara militia have expansionist political and territorial agendas.
Unless the situation is curbed through a meaningful security mechanism that would ensure future peace in the region, there is no doubt that high-level inter-group violence will break out with broader ramifications.
In response to the ongoing Fano-led aggression in Western Oromia, we call upon all Oromo political organizations and movements to unite in their efforts to defend Oromia’s territorial integrity and protect its population.
Both the federal and Oromia regional governments must take decisive action to safeguard civilians from armed violence and ensure their security.
To promote peaceful coexistence and prevent further bloodshed, civil society groups, national and international organizations, and activists should actively engage in peacebuilding efforts between the indigenous Oromo community and Amhara settlers.
Additionally, the government must take concrete steps to disarm unlawfully armed Amhara militias and remove Fano forces from the Oromia region. In the absence of such measures, Oromo farmers have the right to defend themselves against violence by any means necessary.
Asebe Regassa is a senior research fellow at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and researches on issues of inter-group relations, conflict, peacebuilding, and state-society relations in East Africa.
Gemechu Abeshu is a research fellow at York University, Canada, researching forced displacements and refugees, insurgency and counterinsurgencies, and non-state forms of power in the Horn of Africa.
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