The Allied leaders said “Never Again” after the Holocaust during the end of World War II. Unfortunately, this motto has been ignored repeatedly since then. The world has witnessed the Rwandan, Bosnian, Darfur, and Rohingya genocides, and more in the last half a century. Currently, in Ethiopia, there is an active genocide happening against the Amhara people (“Active Genocide Alert – Ethiopia in Amhara Region”).
Ethiopia has over 80 different ethnicities with their own languages and distinct culture. One of the major ethnicities is the Amhara people. The Amhara people live all over Ethiopia, but because of the country’s Ethnic Federation system, the Amhara region is located in the country’s northwestern part. Though the exact number of Amhara is unknown, it is estimated to exceed 50 million by Amharan sources and 28-30 million by the government estimates. Suppressing the Amhara’s exact number and manipulating data has been employed by many factions including the government in order to isolate, subjugate, and exterminate the Amharas (“People of Ethiopia – Alchetron, the Free Social Encyclopedia”).
The silent genocide against the Amhara people has been going on for the last half a century. This active genocide did not come to the International Community’s attention due to the lack of media coverage and lack of exposure. Though it cannot be confirmed, according to a 2016 report by Amharan advocacy group Morsh Wegene, close to ten million Amharas have perished in the past fifty years. These heinous atrocities were and are committed by armed forces from different ethnicities and in some cases supported by local and state governments and Federal authority figures.
Local media and journalists who dared to expose this genocide were and are subjected to harassment and indefinite incarceration without appearing before courts. International Media journalists have tried to report from abroad because their requests for entry were denied by the government, which affects their reporting and credibility. Furthermore, the Ethiopian government has repeatedly denied the requests for fact-finding missions by the International Community.
The mass killings, gruesome massacres, forced displacements, rapes, and inhumane mutilations of the Amhara communities escalated drastically in the last five years since the Oromo forces took control of the federal government. The major Oromo political movements have depicted the Amharas as a historical enemy and oppressors via guilt by association with the Ethiopian monarchy which ended in 1974. Meanwhile, during this political upheaval and while active genocide is going on the lack of international media coverage has hindered the prevention, prosecution, and stopping of the Amhara genocide (“Ethnic Violence Against Amhara People: The ECLJ Issues Urgent Letter to the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide”).