Aid workers risk death and kidnap in Ethiopia’s troubled Amhara region

In late July, Yared Melese, a 30-year-old NGO worker, checked into a hotel in North Wollo zone, part of Ethiopia’s troubled Amhara region. He had gone to assess humanitarian needs on behalf of Action for Social Development and Environmental Protection Organisation (ASDEPO), an Ethiopian non-profit.

That night he and three colleagues were abducted by armed men. The kidnappers let the others go but demanded a ransom for Yared’s release. Mediation by local elders failed. On 9 August, it was confirmed that Yared was dead.

Yared was the sixth humanitarian worker to be killed this year in Amhara, where government forces are fighting local militias known as Fano. The UN also counts eight incidents of kidnap involving UN or NGO staff, nine incidents of robbery, and four where UN vehicles have been commandeered.

Almost the whole of Amhara – a region larger than Bangladesh, with as many people as Malaysia – is shaded pink or orange on the UN’s access maps, indicating that violence makes it difficult for aid to reach many of those in need.

What began as a political conflict is turning into a more general erosion of law and order, where armed groups have proliferated and kidnapping of civilians has become common.

The UN’s World Food Programme, which supports almost half a million people in Amhara, said in a statement that humanitarian workers face “ongoing security threats including armed robberies, kidnappings, illegal checkpoints, truck hijackings, looting of food and nutrition commodities from trucks and the destruction of trucks”.

It added that there were four separate incidents in August where WFP trucks – or trucks of WFP contractors – were attacked and their cargo looted. It did not say who it thought the attackers were.

Humanitarian workers at five different non-governmental organisations, speaking anonymously because of political sensitivities, said the situation is becoming more unpredictable.

“We can do all the analysis, but there is no set pattern to this – it’s random, and that’s one of the hardest things for any security team to try and pick up,” said a safety expert at one international non-profit, who asked for anonymity so they could speak more freely.

“You can go home tonight and [your logistics are] all planned, then you come in at six o’clock tomorrow morning ready to jump on transport and go. And the first thing you get is a flash saying that the road’s closed or the village has been taken over.”

An estimated four million people in Amhara are food insecure after a poor harvest last year. Some areas are grappling with ongoing outbreaks of malaria, cholera, and measles.

The region also hosts thousands of refugees from neighbouring Sudan, who came to Amhara in search of sanctuary but have instead suffered attacks, abductions, and rapes by local gunmen.

Growing dangers

For two years, as the Ethiopian government battled rebels in the northern Tigray region, the army and Fano militias were temporarily united against a common enemy. But they fell out after that war ended in 2022, disagreeing over issues like the fate of contested areas, and the disarmament of regional paramilitaries.

“Normally in a conflict, we know who we should negotiate with [to access communities] and what are the rules of the game. But here, it could be a different person every day that we have to find.”

By the middle of last year, Fano controlled much of the countryside in Amhara, and even briefly occupied major towns. Fighting has continued ever since. Earlier this month, Fano militias clashed with government soldiers in the border town of Metema, an important crossing point into Sudan. This week, there has been fighting in Gondar, one of the largest cities in the country.

The Fano militias do not seem to have a single command structure. Some of the armed groups operating in the region appear to be little more than criminal gangs or local extortion rackets, whose connection to the wider Fano movement is unknown. Sudden shifts of control and the lack of clear front lines further cloud the picture.

Humanitarian workers have found themselves crossing back and forth between areas controlled by the government and by militias, along routes littered with checkpoints and informal roadblocks.

“Normally in a conflict, we know who we should negotiate with [to access communities] and what are the rules of the game,” said one aid worker. “But here, it could be a different person every day that we have to find.”

Paul Handley, the head of the UN’s emergency aid coordination office, OCHA, said the UN has developed a code of conduct to guide humanitarian work, reaffirming basic principles of independence and neutrality.

It emphasises that humanitarian workers will not pay fees at checkpoints, carry weapons, or use armed escorts.

But the dangers are growing. Until recently, “the risks of operating in Amhara were about being in the wrong place at the wrong time”, said Handley, adding that this could involve running into clashes between the army and what the UN calls “non-state armed groups”.

But now, he says he worries about increasing signs of “opportunistic criminality”, such as kidnappings, where humanitarian workers have become targets.

Some of the biggest risks are faced by local staff in Ethiopian NGOs, who have the grassroots presence to reach local communities but lack the same robust safety systems as international non-profits.

Politicising aid

There is a political aspect to some attacks, sources told The New Humanitarian. For example, one aid worker described an incident where two trucks were stopped by armed men who accused the drivers of taking food to government soldiers. Another said that militiamen wrongly suspect NGO workers of gathering information for the government, because “when they see a new face, they are insecure”.

A third source said that sometimes when armed groups detain drivers at roadblocks “they give them ‘education’ on why they are doing what they are doing”, trying to convert them politically to their cause.

But in general, attackers seem more interested in extorting money than in immediate political objectives, often contacting the families of kidnap victims directly to demand a ransom.

In statements published online, Fano groups in Wollo and Gondar have condemned attacks on humanitarian workers and denied any involvement.

Politicising aid

For much of the two-year war in Tigray, the Ethiopian government was accused of restricting humanitarian access – an allegation it has denied.

In Amhara, by contrast, humanitarian workers say the government is currently allowing the movement of aid deliveries.

However, human rights groups are documenting multiple abuses by government forces in Amhara, including arbitrary detention, massacres, and the killing of civilians in drone strikes.

A report published in July by Human Rights Watch catalogued the devastation of the region’s health system.

It described how government forces had killed health workers and patients, looted medical supplies, targeted ambulances, and raided hospitals in search of patients with gunshot or blast wounds, which they consider evidence of Fano-affiliation. Many civilians are so fearful that they are avoiding health facilities altogether, the rights group said.

Although aid workers are allowed access to the region, humanitarian budgets have been squeezed.

The humanitarian response plan for Ethiopia, prepared by the UN in partnership with the Ethiopian government, estimates that $3.24 billion is required to support people in need in 2024. So far, donors have contributed only a fifth of that.

Recent rains should lead to an improved harvest in October, but it is unclear how much farmers have been able to plant, given the ongoing insecurity and the disruption to trade in agricultural inputs, like fertiliser and seeds.

Humanitarian workers say they will keep trying to do their jobs – but every day the risks are escalating.