SUMMARY
2025
While 2025 saw a marked increase in organized violence for the second consecutive year, with fatalities increasing from over 4100 to almost 5500, the levels remain markedly below those of 2021-2022, when the war between the Ethiopian government and TPLF was at its’ most bloody.
This escalation was almost exclusively driven by developments in the country’s most deadly state-based conflict; that fought between the Ethiopian government and the Fano militia in the Amhara region. Already at a high intensity level in 2024, 2025 saw the number of fatalities increase by 75 % to over 3800. As the year progressed, Fano demonstrated increased operational synchronization among previously decentralized militias, launching a number of major offensives. The government, for its part, responded with intensified counterinsurgency campaigns, escalating its use of drone warfare even more. In contrast, the other state-based conflict active in Ethiopia – the one fought over the Oromiya region – de-escalate in 2025, with the number of fatalities dropping from almost 700 to below 500.
While fatalities from one-sided violence decreased in 2025, going from over 1000 to just over 800, the number remained high compared to most other years in the post-1989 period. As in previous peak years, the one-sided violence was by and large carried out in the context of the highly intense state-based armed conflicts, by the parties to those conflicts: the government, Fano and OLA. In 2025, as in most other years, the government was the main perpetrator of one-sided violence in the country.
Fatalities from non-state conflict increased slightly, but at a total number of just under 300 fatalities, developments in this category had little impact on the overall trend. For the second consecutive year, the main non-state conflict in Ethiopia in 2025 was fought between the Anuak and Nuer ethnic groups in Gambella regional state in the south-eastern most part of the country. It resulted in a little over 150 fatalities and has been ongoing intermittently for decades. Another noteworthy conflict in 2025 was the internecine fighting between sub-groups of the Fano militia, pitting AFNF and AFPO against each other. As a lot of the reporting on these groups comes from partisan Ethiopian outlets, activist media, and scattered conflict reporting, fatality claims are often difficult to independently verify. Thus, it may well be that this was the main non-state conflict in 2025, but limited unbiased reporting made this impossible to verify.
