By The Habesha News Desk
September 26, 2025
The Amhara Fano National Force (AFNF), under its Menelik Command, claims major victories in North and South Wollo. Its leaders report 471 ENDF soldiers killed and 175 taken captive. If true, this would mark one of the gravest defeats for federal troops since the war in Amhara began in 2023. Media sympathetic to Fano have circulated these numbers with urgency, pointing to Wollo as the latest battleground where Abiy Ahmed’s government faces rising resistance.
But here lies the danger: in Ethiopia’s fog of war, numbers often become weapons. Reports from the ground remain unverified, with communications in Amhara deliberately throttled or cut. Reuters and other international agencies caution that none of these figures can be independently confirmed. Human rights groups add that casualty claims are routinely exaggerated or manipulated by both sides. In this climate, every communiqué doubles as propaganda.
Yet, the fact that AFNF dares to make such declarations reveals something undeniable: federal authority in Amhara is deeply strained. Conflict monitors such as ACLED show a war of rhythm, not resolution—bursts of ferocious fighting followed by uneasy lulls. AFNF has demonstrated resilience in rural strongholds, while ENDF counters with drones, heavy weaponry, and a grip on key towns. This is not collapse, but it is not control either.
Wollo’s significance cannot be overstated. The A2 highway, running through Dessie, Kombolcha, and Woldiya, is a lifeline connecting Addis Ababa to the north. Whoever holds this artery commands not just movement of troops, but also the economic pulse of the nation. Reports of artillery exchanges on Woldiya’s outskirts suggest AFNF is testing that lifeline, perhaps gambling that the federal government’s stretched forces can no longer defend both urban centers and rural hinterlands.
The Fano story itself tells us why this war is so bitter. Once allies of the ENDF during the Tigray conflict, Fano turned against the very state it helped defend after Abiy Ahmed’s administration announced plans to dissolve regional forces in 2023. What began as fragmented local militias has since evolved into a more organized—if still divided—movement presenting itself as a defender of Amhara autonomy. As The New Humanitarian observed, Fano now speaks in the language of self-determination, casting Abiy’s centralization drive as nothing less than an existential threat.
Amid all this, civilians continue to pay the highest price. From the massacre at Merawi in January 2024, where federal troops executed dozens of civilians, to repeated drone strikes in Finote Selam and Debre Markos, the war has brought not liberation but terror. Displacement runs into the millions, humanitarian convoys are blocked or looted, and whole communities are left to starve or bury their dead in silence. Each side argues about battlefield victories, but for ordinary Ethiopians, there is only loss.
So what should we make of AFNF’s bold assertion that “ENDF is losing”? It is at once a battlefield claim and a political message: that Abiy Ahmed’s authority is bleeding out in Amhara. Analysts rightly urge caution—no independent evidence substantiates such precise numbers. But one fact is beyond dispute: Ethiopia’s wars have trapped civilians in a cycle of massacre, displacement, and despair. Whether ENDF is losing battles or not, it is the Ethiopian people who are losing the most.
This is the tragedy of Abiy Ahmed’s Ethiopia: a Prime Minister once decorated as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate now presiding over wars that leave every community fractured, every family grieving, and the nation more divided than ever.
