Ethiopia’s Judeo-Christian Heritage Under Attack: Part 2
Far-Left Threats and the Government’s Involvement
Ethiopia is once again experiencing heightened violence after a brutal civil war devastated communities from 2020 to 2022. In recent years, the country has experienced severe human rights violations, further exacerbated by conflicts in the Tigray, Oromia, and Amhara regions.
A peace agreement between the Ethiopian Government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) formally ended the fighting in 2022. However, it did not end the human rights violations.
Over the past seven years, Ethiopian Christians have been subjected to extensive human rights abuses. These violations are marked by recurring incidents of massacres, extrajudicial killings, drone strikes, forced displacements, sexual violence, and mass arrests, amongst other atrocities.
Such acts of violence are orchestrated by far-left armed groups. These incidents often involve the complicity or passive acquiescence of local authorities. They are predominantly driven by ethnic and religious discrimination, leading to substantial casualties.
Ethiopia is an ethnically diverse nation with around ninety distinct ethnic groups. Oromo, the country’s largest ethno-linguistic group, constitutes more than one-third of the population and is home to the largest Muslim community. A significant portion of the Oromo population also identifies as Christian. The Amhara, who are Orthodox Christian, are the next largest ethno-linguistic group in the country. Other major groups include the Somali, Tigray, Sidama, Gurage, Welaita, and Afar.
Ethiopia primarily adheres to Christianity (~60%) and Islam (~33%). The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (~43%) is dominant, particularly in the north, while Protestantism (20%) is growing in the south and west. Islam is prevalent in the Afar, Somali, and Oromia regions.
Escalating Violence
The Amhara people in Ethiopia have faced persecution and massacres for several decades. Various groups, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA)/Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which are rooted in Marxism-Leninism and ethno-nationalism, as well as the ruling Prosperity Party (PP), are accused of orchestrating these crimes.
Meanwhile, violence has escalated in the Amhara, Oromia, and Tigray regions and surrounding areas of Ethiopia since the beginning of this year. Rising tensions between the Ethiopian government and Eritrea regarding their disputed border territory have also brought the November 2022 Peace Agreement to the verge of collapse.
The Amhara Association of America (AAA), in a February 8 press statement, said the war was being carried out by the ruling Prosperity Party in cooperation with the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and allied forces, including Oromia Region Special Forces. “Abuses were predominantly identity-based, targeting ethnic Amhara communities and persons affiliated to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC),” the statement said.
In January 2026 alone, AAA’s initiative Amhara War Updates (AWU) recorded battle events and human rights incidents across 106 distinct districts in 19 zonal administrations in four regions (Amhara, Oromia, Benishangul-Gumuz, and Addis Ababa). “While the majority of human rights incidents implicated Oromo Prosperity Party (OPP) regime forces, other perpetrators included Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces, Oromia Region Forces, Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) militants and Gumuz militants,” AWU said.
Since January 2023, there have been consistent reports of the Ethiopian government orchestrating discriminatory displacements, targeting primarily non-Oromos, especially Amharas, in the vicinity of the capital.
The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) reported:
“The prevailing anti-Amhara sentiment is closely tied to an aversion to the Orthodox faith, as most of the Amhara people are Orthodox Christians…
“The human rights violations range from forced displacement and mass arrests to systematic massacres and ethnic cleansings. For instance, on June 18, 2022, the Amhara community in Wollega within the Oromia region of Ethiopia was brutally slaughtered in what is now called the Gimbi massacre. The victim count is between 400–500 people. The modus operandi involved extreme cruelty, including the burning alive of individuals and the mutilation of pregnant women…
“These violations not only qualify as crimes against humanity but also evince a systematic trajectory toward genocide.”
In May 2022, the government reportedly detained over 4,000 ethnic Amhara individuals. This number surged following the declaration of a state of emergency in August 2023. The ECLJ noted: “While these issues have garnered international attention, the extent of the abuses, specifically those inflicted upon the Amhara population, lacks sufficient coverage.”
Tedla Melaku, an Ethiopian-American author and humanitarian advocate whose academic background is in philosophy and social sciences, is trying to raise awareness about the persecution of Christians in Ethiopia. His book Reason and the Sacred: Ethiopian Metaphysics explores Orthodox Christian theology and Christian mysticism, with a focus on Ethiopia’s unique ancient Jewish-Middle Eastern links and a Semitic tradition that blends Temple Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy—a history that stretches back to early antiquity.
In an interview with this author, Melaku said:
“The greatest challenges Ethiopian Christians face are Islamic terrorism, Marxism, ethnic fascism, and factions that seek to destroy Ethiopia’s Judeo-Christian (literally) foundations and its Orthodox Christian traditions. Wahhabi-related forces in Ethiopia, collaborating with ethno-fascist elements in power within the regime, have been massacring Christians and burning churches, while also targeting specific groups, such as the Amhara people, due to their Semitic and largely Christian heritage.
“On the other hand, Marxist forces have for decades attacked the Church and Ethiopia’s Christian heritage. This started with the murder of the last Christian Emperor in 1974 and the execution of the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. They killed hundreds of thousands in a course of seventeen years during the communist Derg regime, and later, another Marxist-ethno-fascist group, the TPLF, took over to introduce ‘ethnic federalism,’ intending to disintegrate the country and weaken the Orthodox Church. Those who are now in power are also infiltrating the Church to weaken it, causing a great amount of harm.
“Far-left groups, such as the TPLF and OLF/OLA, including the current regime itself, have been waging war against the Amhara people with the intent of destroying Ethiopia’s historical identity, its noble and patriotic heritage, and its Judeo-Christian civilization. The TPLF described themselves as ‘anti-Amhara imperialists’ in the early manifesto and sought to ‘bury’ Ethiopia’s Christian monarchical structure and break the country apart to create a new ethnostate; while OLF/OLA sought to destroy the Semitic heritage as whole, destroy Ethiopia itself which they perceive as an ‘Orthodox Christian expansionist force with Semitic roots.’ Both terror groups caused the death and destruction of innumerable people and Christian heritage over decades. The current regime has also been at war with the Amhara people who are fighting for their survival as a community and to protect their heritage.
“The current US administration and other pro-Western organizations should understand that the Amhara are fighting for their survival and to preserve Ethiopia’s longstanding heritage—one of the oldest Christian cultures, whose alliance with Christian Europeans can be traced back to antiquity when Ethiopia’s Axumite Empire and the Byzantine Empire collaborated. It is also a prestigious, biblical culture, albeit facing serious challenges, originating in the ancient dominion of the Queen of Sheba, and her visit to ancient Israel to meet King Solomon. These far-left forces are committing cultural erasure, as well as ethnic cleansing and genocide in order to destroy and bury this heritage and change the demographics of the region. The forces that are actively destroying Ethiopia’s Judeo-Christian heritage and committing massacres, mainly targeting the Amhara community, should be recognized as terror groups.”
Uzay Bulut is a fellow at the Ideological Defense Institute.
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