By VOH. His email finmartens165@gmail.com.
In the heart of Ethiopia, far from the headlines and policy summits, a humanitarian
catastrophe is unfolding. It is a tragedy not born of natural disaster, but of a government at war with its people, an international community choosing quiet complicity, and a populationleft to starve, suffer, and disappear.
At the epicenter of this storm are the Amhara people—a historically marginalized population now bearing the brunt of Ethiopia’s descent into brutality. As conflict, displacement, and systemic neglect ravage the Amhara region, the scale of human suffering defies comprehension. This is no longer just a crisis. It is a deliberate dismantling of a people’s right to exist.
According to UNICEF’s Mid-Year 2025 Humanitarian Report, a staggering 21.4 million
Ethiopians—more than one-sixth of the population—now require urgent humanitarian assistance. Over 4.5 million people are internally displaced, many of them from Amhara, forced to flee burned villages, deadly drone strikes, and summary executions. Nearly 900,000 children are experiencing severe acute malnutrition, their bodies wasting away while the regime pours billions into war machines, vanity projects, and propaganda.
Behind every number lies a name: a mother dying in childbirth because hospitals were shelled. A child traverses miles of desolate terrain without shoes, seeking water. A father executed in front of his family, accused of “collaborating” with the resistance. These are not abstractions. They are the human cost of authoritarian cruelty.
The Amhara region has become a killing field—bombed from above, blockaded from within, and erased from without. Schools have shuttered, clinics have been destroyed, and humanitarian corridors are closed or manipulated. Even religious institutions—once sacred and untouchable—are now being desecrated, with priests shot in their robes and churches looted or demolished.
“This is not just about war. It’s about erasure. A slow-motion extermination carried out with surgical cruelty.”
Let’s be clear: this is not the result of bad governance, it is the result of malicious policy. What we’re witnessing is the deliberate weaponization of poverty, famine, and displacement. The Abiy Ahmed regime has turned drones, aid blockades, and disinformation into tools of subjugation. The war is not just military. It is psychological, cultural, and existential.
And while this horror unfolds, the world’s institutions—the World Bank, IMF, and even UN bodies—continue to fund, engage, and enable the very regime orchestrating this catastrophe. Billions in loans and aid funneled into the black hole of authoritarianism. While the regime builds palaces and buys war machines, the people get nothing but silence and starvation.
“You cannot fund tyranny and claim neutrality. You cannot ignore genocide and call it
diplomacy.”
Of all the crimes unfolding in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, few are as devastating and
long-lasting as the war on children and their education.
More than 8 million children are currently out of school across Ethiopia, with the vast majority being from the Amhara region. This is not a side effect of war—it is a targeted assault on the next generation. Thousands of schools have been closed, damaged, or destroyed—many reduced to rubble by drone strikes, artillery, or intentional military occupation. What should be safe havens of learning have become battlegrounds, or worse, graves.
What this means: A lost generation is being created. When children are denied education, entire communities lose their future teachers, leaders, builders, healers, and defenders. The scars go deeper than statistics—they are psychological, cultural, and spiritual.
This is no accident. The Abiy Ahmed regime, driven by the ideology of Oromummaa, is not only committing mass atrocities—it is systematically dismantling the intellectual, moral, and cultural backbone of the Amhara people. This is a regime that understands the power of education and is determined to deny it to those it seeks to destroy.
It is not just genocide in the physical sense. It is cultural erasure. Generational sabotage. A war on memory and potential. And it may be the most unforgivable crime of all.
How many red lines must be crossed before action is taken? How many corpses must fill mass graves before someone says “enough”? The Western powers who claim to champion democracy and human rights have failed Ethiopia. They are not just absent—they are accomplices.
“To media outlets: Do not tell us this is ‘unworthy’ to cover. This is massive war—declared by the regime in power on its own people—waged with battle drones, helicopter gunships, and a full-scale military.”
This is a test of our collective humanity—and we are failing.
If this article makes you uncomfortable, it should. If this feels like an exaggeration, you haven’t been paying attention.
This is not a war in the abstract. It is a slow, grinding annihilation of a people the world has decided are expendable.
To those in power: Do not say you did not know. To media outlets: Do not pretend this is too ‘complicated’ to cover. To donors and institutions: Stop fueling a regime that eats its children and buries its future.
And to the Amhara people: The world may not see you, but we do. Your suffering is real. Your voice matters. And history will remember you not as victims, but as survivors who refused to disappear.
“Because one day, the silence will break. The lies will collapse. And those who stood with the people—not the tyrants—will be remembered as the ones who held the line.”