Ethiopia

Aid-sector tailored predictive situation analysis on Ethiopia to support aid agencies’ strategic security decision-making.

Medical equipment looted in Amhara region
06 February 2025: In Sangi area, South Mecha woreda, Amhara region, medical equipment was looted by members of the Prosperity Party regime joint forces when they broke into a health station. Source: Amhara Association of America. Return to Ethiopia home page. more
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Insecurity Insight monitors attacks on health care in Ethiopia. 

Based on Insecurity Insight data, the Ethiopia chapter of the 2023 Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition report identified at least 14 incidents of violence against or obstruction of health care in Ethiopia in 2023, compared to 13 in 2022 and 64 in 2021. In 2023, at least four health workers were killed. In Ethiopia, despite an end to the conflict in Tigray, attacks on health care tripled in Oromia and doubled in Amhara during armed conflict between Ethiopian government forces and various ethnic militias. The actual number of incidents and the severity of the problem are likely much greater, because of probable under-reporting. The full chapter is accessible here. 

Our data is accessible here and can be explored visually using our interactive map: Attacked and Threatened: Health Care at Risk.

Aid in Danger

Humanitarian organisations have been denied or delayed access to many conflict-affected regions and communication blackouts persist in some areas. Ethiopian aid workers have been killed whilst others remain unaccounted for in Tigray region. Data

Sexual Violence

Reports of systematic sexual violence by conflict parties have been reported during the Tigray conflict. Tigrayan women have been raped at gunpoint and forced to have sex with other family members or in exchange for basic commodities. In some cases, their family members were made to watch. In other cases, women were taken to an Eritrean military camp and repeatedly raped by Eritrean soldiers.

Women and girls in refugee camps in the region were particularly targeted. Witnesses to these incidents were threatened and warned against identifying perpetrators or reporting the incidents. Data

Education

Schools and teachers have been harmed amidst violence in Oromio, Benishangul-Gumuz, and Tigray regions. Schools associated with ethnic Amhara residents have been burnt down and ethnic Amhara students attacked by Oromo youth organizations during the June protests in Oromio against the assassination of a prominent Oromo artist.

Teachers have been shot and killed by police and federal forces for allegedly organising demonstrations and schools used by armed militiamen and opposition forces to execute civilians in Oromio and Benishangul-Gumuz regions.

Schools have been damaged by Ethiopian National Defence forces airstrikes and set on fire by conflict parties in Tigray. Data

IDPs and Refugees

In Tigray region humanitarian organisations have been denied or delayed access to many conflict-affected regions. Shimelba and Hitsats refugee camps in the north have deliberately been attacked and refugees abducted and killed. Infrastructures inside the camps has also been burnt down. There have been claims of refugees being forced back into Eritrea by Eritrean forces.

Although there have been temporary and intermittent improvements in humanitarian access, this is insufficient to reach all people in need. IDPs have reportedly starved to death, amid mounting evidence of an impending famine in the region. People inside IDP camps have been detained and physically assaulted by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. Data