French newspaper Libération provides rare insight into the Fano movement and its fighters that are battling the Abiy Ahmed regime in Ethiopia’s Amhara region. A large-scale two-year armed conflict unfolding in Northern Ethiopia that continues to be underreported by the mainstream media.
In May 2025, photojournalist Robin Tutenges traveled to Wollo, in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, to document the Fano movement, its training camps, and recruits, including two young girls, Asefg and Ayehy.
Since Abiy Ahmed and his regime launched an unjust war of aggression on the Amhara region and its people in April 2023, the Fano have been at war with Abiy’s forces. Abiy initially claimed he could successfully conduct a military operation in “two week”; however, two years later his army continues to face defeat and humiliation throughout the Amhara region.
According to the report by Libération, “the Ethiopian federal army has carried out numerous atrocities without defeating the insurgents. Consequently, “the widespread abuses and war crimes being committed by the Ethiopian army have become one of the main drivers for the recruitment of Fano forces”.
Ayehy, a young girl, 20 years old, that joined Fano forces recounts her experience: “I come from a village 30 kilometers from here. There, one of my 22-year-old friends was kidnapped, then raped by the military, before being thrown into the street. At that moment, I realized that I had no choice but to fight. Not just to protect myself, but to protect the girls in my region and to defend my people.”
According to the report, while Fano currently does not hold major urban centers, it controls 80% of the Amhara region — mainly rural areas — establishing checkpoints along key roads, and carrying out ambushes and targeted attacks against the federal forces.
The Abiy regime’s war on Amhara — home to 23 million people — has led to the closure of 4,178 schools, while only 2.3 million students are enrolled in school out of 7 million school-aged children in the Amhara region. Furthermore, according to Doctors Without Borders, “the ongoing conflict has severely affected the region’s already fragile healthcare system, with many facilities facing shortages of essential medicines”.
On the military front, the Abiy regime is making “extensive use of armed drones against [Fano] areas — often indiscriminately”, according to Libération. In this regard, investigations and research by human rights organizations find that the Abiy regime engages in extrajudicial killings and intentionally targets civilians and civilian infrastructure with drone strikes, in violation of international human rights and international humanitarian law.
Despite having far greater firepower than Fano, the Abiy regime is unable to defeat Fano forces, concludes the report by Libération.
Ethiopian Policy Institute 