By muluken tekleyohannes
To be an Amhara woman in today’s Ethiopia is to carry the weight of centuries of unresolved pain—wounds too deep for words, too vast for the world to acknowledge. It is to live under a system that not only ignores your suffering but actively erases it. It is to inherit the burden of your mother’s trauma, to raise your voice only to be silenced, and to stand in the ruins of communities deliberately destroyed.
From the highlands of Gojjam to the conflicted border zones of Welkait, Wollega, and Benishangul-Gumuz, the cries of Amhara women have echoed through burned villages, mass graves, and broken bodies. And yet, those cries remain unheard, smothered under a state narrative that denies, deflects, and demonizes.
Targeted Violence in Silence
The atrocities committed against Amhara women are not incidental. They are strategic—part of a systematic campaign to dismantle not just a community, but a people. In places like Mai-Kadra, Ataye, and western Oromia, accounts of mass rape, mutilation, and targeted executions have become chillingly common.
Women have been kidnapped from universities. Some never return. Others are found disfigured—raped, tortured, discarded. A disturbing number of these women were pregnant when attacked, their wombs slashed open in an act meant to annihilate both mother and unborn child. The symbolism is unmistakable: the destruction of the future Amhara generation.
This is not sporadic violence. It is genocidal engineering. And what makes it even more horrifying is the silence that surrounds it.
After Hachalu Hundessa: The Mob Violence Unleashed
The brutal killing of singer and activist Hachalu Hundessa in 2020 was a turning point, not only for Ethiopia’s political trajectory but also for the fate of the Amhara community. In the days that followed his death, mobs rampaged across Oromia and surrounding regions, targeting Amharas with a ferocity that defied belief.
Homes were burned. Children were beheaded. Women were raped and mutilated. One case stands as a symbol of that horror: a pregnant Amhara woman was disemboweled, her unborn baby ripped from her body in an act of unspeakable barbarity. This was not just communal rage. It was a ritualistic act of ethnic extermination.
Yet, even then, the world looked away. International human rights groups offered tepid responses, and Ethiopia’s state-controlled media buried the truth. Victims were labeled agitators. Survivors were silenced. And the government, instead of addressing the horror, turned its fury toward those who dared to speak out.
The War on Journalists and Truth
In Ethiopia today, telling the truth is an act of rebellion. The Ethiopian government has launched a quiet war—not just against the Amhara people, but against the very concept of truth itself. Independent journalists who document atrocities are routinely jailed, harassed, or forced into exile. Their only crime is daring to speak the names of the forgotten.
Since 2021, dozens of journalists—many of them Amhara—have been detained without charge. News outlets reporting on violence in Amhara regions have been shut down under vague “anti-terrorism” laws. Government spokespersons repeatedly deny well-documented massacres, blaming “unidentified forces” or claiming the footage is fabricated.
But the evidence is overwhelming. Leaked videos, survivor testimonies, satellite imagery, and reports from human rights observers paint a grim picture of state complicity. In some regions, survivors claim they saw government security forces either assisting the attackers or refusing to intervene.
This coordinated crackdown on information is not just about narrative control—it is about erasure. If the stories are never told, then the victims never existed.
Erasing a People Through Women
There is a unique cruelty in targeting women during genocide. It is a form of violence that aims not only to break the present but to extinguish the future. Across Ethiopia’s conflict zones, Amhara women have become symbolic battlegrounds for ethnic cleansing. The violence inflicted upon them is not just physical; it is cultural, spiritual, existential.
Forced sterilizations. Gang rapes in front of family members. Child abductions. Women being forced to watch the slaughter of their husbands before being raped by their killers. These are not anomalies. These are patterns. Tactics. Methods of ethnic warfare.
Psychological trauma compounds the physical agony. Many women are shunned after surviving sexual violence, rejected by their families or villages. Some commit suicide. Others disappear into refugee camps, their stories lost to the dust of displacement.
The World’s Deafening Silence
Why does the world look away? Why is the suffering of Amhara women not front-page news? Part of the answer lies in Ethiopia’s political complexity and in the West’s strategic interest in preserving its relationship with the government. Another part lies in global desensitization—where African pain is often seen as inevitable, unworthy of urgent intervention.
But mostly, it is a question of narrative. The Ethiopian government has worked tirelessly to frame the Amhara people as aggressors, as power-hungry elites seeking domination. In doing so, they’ve rewritten history—and silenced the present.
Even international organizations fall into this trap, describing the conflict in vague “ethnic tensions” language that flattens atrocities into mere tribal disputes. But this is not a tribal war. It is an orchestrated campaign of extermination.
A Call to Conscience
To be an Amhara woman today is to be trapped in a country where your blood is not just spilled—it is erased. Where your cries echo into silence. Where your existence is an act of resistance.
This is not just a tragedy—it is a crime. A genocide unfolding in slow motion while the world blinks.
The Ethiopian government must be held accountable—not just for failing to protect its citizens, but for enabling, and in some cases executing, their destruction. The international community must stop its diplomatic dance and recognize the horror for what it is.
But more than that, the voices of Amhara women must be heard. Not as footnotes in reports. Not as victims stripped of agency. But as survivors. As witnesses. As leaders.
Because the survival of a people often rests on the resilience of its women. And if Amhara women continue to rise—despite the rape, the slaughter, the silence—then perhaps hope is not yet lost.
But first, we must listen. And we must act.
Note This article is based on survivor testimonies, human rights reports, and investigative journalism. Many names and locations have been withheld for security reasons. The crimes described herein demand urgent international investigation and accountability.
