Mending Fences: Addressing Ethiopia’s Internal Land Disputes

This article is part of the Analytical Reporting to Improve the Federation (ARIF) project

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n late November 2024, yet another video of a grisly murder of a defenceless young man surfaced, causing uproar on and offline in Ethiopia. This time the incident occurred in the village of Derra, a disputed mostly rural district in Oromia often claimed by ethnonationalists from neighbouring Amhara.¹

In the video, apparently recorded on a mobile phone, the victim, a 17-year-old high school student was held by armed militias who crossed themselves before beheading him with a machete.

In recent years similar videos revealing the brutal killings of unarmed individuals—often filmed by perpetrators themselves—have flooded the internet. From point blank executions to burning a man alive, violent acts captured on video have become alarmingly prevalent.

Most of these acts take place in a context of conflicts and a culture of impunity appears to have encouraged them.² There is generally little to no action from the authorities and public outrage is not strong enough or does not last long enough to force a meaningful official reaction.

The killing of the student, Dereje Amare, was no different. It sparked protests in universities across Oromia while government officials released statements blaming “extremists,” a nomenclature preferred by the authorities to describe Amhara Fano militias. But the demonstrations fizzled out and Derra, the setting for largely ignored clashes, once again returned to being out of the public eye.

In the days leading up to Dereje’s killing, according to two residents who spoke to Ethiopia Insight, armed militia from bordering Amhara areas crossed into farming villages and launched attacks against Oromos living there. Many fled their homes, some hiding in ravines. Dereje and another teen, also killed off-camera on the same day, remained behind trying to protect their families’ cattle.³

Located along the border of Ethiopia’s two most-populous regions some 220 kilometres northeast of the capital Addis Ababa, Derra has long been a place of contention and violence. It’s one of 16 districts in Oromia’s North Shoa Zone with multiple villages inhabited predominantly by Amharas.

In the late 2010s, some Amharas living in those villages fashioned a committee to voice their discontent over a lack of representation in local government and to demand that services like court procedures are conducted in their language. The committee took these questions to the regional authorities, going as high as the President’s Office. At the same time, others, particularly Amhara politicians and regional officials, argued these villages should be incorporated into Amhara.⁴

Over the past four years, Derra has seen an alarming degree of violence with heavily armed Amhara militias, Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) fighters and government soldiers involved in frequent clashes. Internet and phone services are often disconnected as fighting intensifies. Innocent civilians continue to pay the price and sometimes they are targeted. The government, besides attempting to quash armed groups through brute force, seems to lack the capacity, the willingness or perhaps the political deft required to address the underlying disagreements.

The Derra problem is mirrored in various contested areas across Ethiopia in which unresolved territorial disputes breed violence.

Lame Duck Commission

Disputes among communities over territories have been documented in Ethiopia for decades. But since the introduction of the country’s current ethnic federalist administrative arrangement in the early 1990s, and with it the structural politicization of ethnicity, tensions have increased.

The past six years, in particular, have seen a recurrence of violent confrontations among state and non-state actors over disputed areas alongside a gradually weakening security apparatus. Informal militias and regional security forces have been implicated in clashes that led to the death and displacement of civilians.

Contested localities continue to be used as rallying cries during vicious conflicts. Left unaddressed, these issues will keep contributing to worsening instability in a country already blighted by ravaging wars and humanitarian crises of biblical proportions.

In December 2018, lawmakers in the capital Addis Ababa approved the formation of a commission tasked with resolving domestic territorial disputes and addressing identity related questions. It had not been a full year since Abiy Ahmed shot to power, assuming the office of prime minister against the backdrop of popular anti-government protests.

After the first few months of blind euphoria that swept most of the country, the new leader’s massive support had begun to settle and reality had started biting.⁵ There were already tensions brewing, especially among elites from Tigray on one side and those from Oromia and Amhara on the other.

Communal clashes had started claiming innocent lives as ethnic frictions became increasingly common. More than a million people were displaced due to ethnic-related clashes; something that marked the beginning of a new reality for a county hitherto considered a ‘beacon of stability’ in a volatile region.

In the protest-filled years ahead of Abiy’s ascent to power, territorial claims had increased and contributed to the political fervour. In part, that was what led to the establishment of the Administrative Boundaries and Identity Issues Commission. It was mandated to work on resolving identity-related territorial disputes. In the preamble of the proclamation, the stated goals were to provide “scientific and sustainable” solutions.

Yet because of the passions and divisions involved, it faced strong—and rare—resistance from some members of parliament in a chamber fully controlled by the ruling coalition and its affiliates.⁶ Some questioned its legality and constitutionality.⁷ Others, especially Tigrayan elites, whose MPs overwhelmingly opposed its formation, thought it could be used to disadvantage them.

Lofty pledges were made by the commission to be inclusive, open, and scientific. In the following months “surveys” were carried out across the country aiming to diagnose the problems. According to the commission’s then secretariat head, Awol Hussein, studies were conducted in 58 districts by 2022. There were plans to continue the assessments in ten more districts and then hold public forums but its term expired without meeting its goals.

It’s possible to see the hasty establishment of the commission as an understanding by the government of the threat different territorial claims pose and the urgency with which they need to be dealt. But with the privilege of hindsight, it’s also possible to argue the move was half-hearted, and perhaps designed to fail. Another argument would be the government, rather cynically, used the commission to signal to domestic and foreign audiences that it was tackling Ethiopia’s deep-rooted ailments. The commission met an unremarkable death without making any significant strides in addressing complex and pressing problem.

Territorial disputes went on to become more entrenched and consequential. In fact, in the coming years, these issues would contribute to the devastating Tigray war, to prolonged conflicts in Amhara, and deadly clashes among pastoralists in Afar and Somali regions.

Afar-Somali: Cycle of Violence-Dialogue

In early December last year, the authorities from Ethiopia’s two eastern regions Afar and Somali agreed to exchange prisoners. The prisoners had been detained in relation to the latest round of violence that broke out a few months earlier in disputed border kebeles. Images released by the authorities showed dozens of men in traditional long fabrics wrapped around and tied at the waist being escorted by members of the federal army.⁸

Violence in these areas is hardly unprecedented. Over the years, there have been several armed clashes, often going beyond communal conflicts to involve regional security forces. Accusations are thrown at each other for instigating and fuelling animosities.

In July 2021, Jigjiga blamed militias from Afar for the “massacre” of hundreds of civilians in Gedamaytu area, one of the three localities contested by the regions. Officials from Afar did not respond to the accusations but protests followed as angry youth blocked the Addis Ababa-Djibouti road, the country’s key trade route. Prior to that, in April that year the Afari authorities had accused Somali regional forces of launching attacks and killing at least a hundred. Officials from Somali at the time admitted to the occurrence of violent confrontations along the bordering areas but put the number of fatalities below 30.

These tragic incidents largely flew under the radar at the time mainly because most of the country’s concern was reserved for a vicious civil war ravaging northern Ethiopia in which the federal army, together with local and foreign allies, was battling Tigrayan forces.⁹

The prisoner exchange last year further betrayed the alarmingly formal nature of the conflicts along borders between Afar and Somali. Ahead of the swap, a national committee of forces from both the federal government and the two regions was established. The committee’s initial tasks were to stop the clashes, to institute a buffer zone in disputed, conflict prone areas and deploy the army as well as the federal police forces.

In a meeting of the committee in September 2024, Mustafa Omar Umer, the president of Somali region, called for the continuation of efforts through “mutual trust and fraternity” while his Afari counterpart, Awol Arba, stressed the need to tackle “destructive attitudes” on both sides.

While this represents progress towards ensuring stability in the border areas, there have been similar efforts previously that only had moderate and short-term success.

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Even in April last year, a few months before deadly clashes broke out again, the two regions had reached a much-hailed agreement to halt recurrent violence. The dialogue leading to the April 2024 deal was overseen by the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, which said efforts to end “decades old lack of peace” among the two “brotherly peoples” had been successful.

It referred to the agreement as a “ceasefire” and pledged to continue working towards long-lasting resolution of the territorial disputes. Tragically, the positivity wouldn’t last long, and more blood was spilt a few months later. An undisclosed number of civilians were killed, and properties were damaged. Many innocent families were forced to flee their homes.

While the clashes and the disputes leading to them are long-running, the frequency with which they are taking place has evidently increased in recent years. According to the conflict monitoring group Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), three armed clash events were recorded between May 2022 and April 2024 involving the two regions. With the increased participation of regional security forces, the violence intensified.¹⁰

Conflict between Afar and Somali revolves around three disputed kebeles. Two of them, Adaytu and Undufo, are currently within Afar and the remaining one, Gedamyatu, is in Somali. The kebeles are inhabited largely by ethnic Somalis from the Issa clan. However, Afari elites have made claims of “historical ownership”. The Somalis, citing their demographic advantage, argue the kebeles should be incorporated within their region. Both communities share similar religions, ways of life, and resources including the Awash River.¹¹

There have been various triggers for conflicts over the years. For instance, the 2021 clashes were instigated by an announcement by the National Election Board to include 30 polling stations in the three contested kebeles under Somali region, a decision it later reversed.

A university lecturer at Samara university who spoke under the condition of anonymity isn’t very optimistic about the conflict. Talks among leaders from the two regions could stop the conflict briefly, but it doesn’t answer claims over the territories, they say. The latest discussions between the two regions could be paving the way for referendums in the three kebeles. But with a number of realignment of alliances even within domestic political forces, the federal government, and by extension federal institutions, might be seen as partial actors, impairing their ability to oversee a vote, the lecturer argues.

At the apex of the Tigray War, Afari officials were closer to the centre of power in Addis Ababa by virtue of their proximity to the battlefronts which gave them a certain political clout. Two years after the war ended, when Ethiopia found itself in diplomatic spats involving its Eastern neighbour Somalia over a controversial non-binding maritime deal the former signed with the self-declared Republic of Somalia, Somali elites, and the region itself, suddenly became a focal point of attention.

This year, Ethiopia’s progressively deteriorating relations with its war time ally Eritrea have become undeniably apparent and with that Afar, that shares borders with it, once again, has become strategically invaluable to Addis Ababa. While the federal authorities would arguably love to avoid any friction between these two increasingly important peripheral regions, the sentiment expressed by the lecturer, and shared by many, is federal institutions could be influenced by the political heat of any given moment to address the issue in an unprejudiced fashion.

The federal government’s failure to be seen as neutral arbitrator is a theme common across other disputed territories, including Raya in South Tigray, one of the places at the heart of heated acrimony between the Tigray and Amhara regions.¹²

In Alamata, the main town in the area, the war is over but tensions and unanswered questions remain palpable.

Tigray-Amhara Dispute: Would They Be Fair to Us?

Before war raged in late 2020, Wagaye, a 55-year-old ethnic Tigrayan, sold tela, a home-brewed ale, to make a living in her hometown of Alamata. It was not an easy life, involving long hours of making malt, roasting wheat, fermenting, and distilling. Most of her customers were people in her neighbourhood, day labourers, shop keepers, shoe-shiners, unemployed youth and elderly men. Farmers from neighbouring rural villages crowded her house where she served them drinks. Still, it was a peaceful life—until bullets started flying, and everything changed.

The town and the surrounding district had been part of Tigray since the early 1990s. But claims have been made over them from Amhara where many felt the area was unfairly taken away. So when the federal government launched a military campaign against Tigrayan forces, allied Amhara troops controlled the area. For the next two and half years they would control the town, which is home to Tigrayans and Amharas, as well as groups of people who identify as Rayas.¹³

Following that, thousands of Tigrayans, including Wagaye, fled their homes. Some went as far away as the regional capital Mekelle and the country’s capital Addis Ababa. Others retreated to rural villages and towns nearby where they thought they would be relatively safer. Wagaye headed to Mehoni, a small town 50 kilometers north of Alamata. She would only return in 2024, two years after a peace deal signed in Pretoria ended the war.

Upon her return she found her home partially destroyed. “The fences are ruined. The house itself had damages and much of the stuff was looted or damaged,” she said. For a few months, she lived in a school compound within the city together with thousands of other returnees.¹⁴ As normality slowly was restored in the town, the returnees were instructed to leave the compound, forcing Wagaye to seek shelter with relatives. “Relief agencies give us wheat as aid. We use some of it for food, we sell the rest for other things,” she said.

Haileluel, a councillor at the Tadagiwa Ethiopia Public School in the town and a Tigrayan, says the peace reigning over Alamata is fragile with tensions among different groups. A visually impaired person who taught Amharic and Tigrinya languages at the school before becoming a councillor, he couldn’t flee during the war. But he was without a job for close to two years. “It was a tough time. I don’t know how we survived it,” he said. For him, for the peace to be lasting, the deal signed between the government and the Tigrayan forces in Pretoria must be implemented fully, meaning Raya must return to Tigray.

But Melaku (name changed upon request), an Amhara resident, maintains the Pretoria Agreement is “meaningless” when it comes to deciding the fate of contested areas between Tigray and Amhara. “You cannot decide the status of a disputed place in the absence of one of the claimants,” echoing a common criticism of the agreement by some Amharas, who say they weren’t fully represented.

Haileluel and Melaku said the Alamata’s security responsibilities have now been left for a command post formed of Federal Police, the national military and Tigrayan forces, while institutions like courts are not functioning.

Amharas in the town have held multiple demonstrations opposing the new arrangement. In October last year at least five were killed after protesters clashed with security forces.

In Tselemti, one of the disputed districts in north-western Tigray an Amhara administration established since the war was discarded in July last year.¹⁵ The Amhara officials were told to stop working and Tigrayan counterparts were appointed to administer the area. Of the 80,000 people estimated to have been displaced from their homes and who were forced to seek shelter in various places across Tigray, a few thousand were returned in the first round.

Unlike Alamata and Tselemti, most of Western Tigray/Welkait hasn’t seen significant administrative change since the beginning of the war. Amhara forces still control the area and hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans who were forcefully displaced during the war have still not returned. Gross human rights violations including ethnic cleansing were reported during and even after the war, and the area remains inaccessible to either relief agencies or independent investigators.

The federal government’s position regarding Western Tigray/Welkait leans towards holding a referendum to determine its administrative status. During the Pretoria Agreement’s first anniversary the federal authorities promised to take control of local security in the disputed areas and hold a referendum. But they did not specify a timetable and did not provide a clear plan how the votes would be carried out.

The suggestion of a referendum was met with opposition from Tigray. Amhara authorities were accused by Tigray of engaging in massive demographic re-engineering programs to “Amharanize” the contested lands. This includes settling Amharas from other places and mass detaining and forcefully uprooting Tigrayans.¹⁶ Federal authorities at one point called the Amhara administration in these areas “illegal” and promised to return displaced Tigrayans. But it’s not clear how they are going to address the accusations of demographic engineering to have a trusted resolution.

Melaku in Alamata doesn’t oppose the idea of a referendum per se but said he has little faith on the federal government to conduct it fairly. “The government is at war with Amhara people,” he said referring to the ongoing conflict in the region between Fano militias and the army. “Do you think they would be fair to us?”

What to Do?

The current constitutional mechanism of addressing territorial disputes among regions requires, first, the concerned regions to try and reach a settlement amongst themselves.¹⁷ If they fail to, the House of Federation (HoF) shall decide on the basis of settlement patterns and consent of people living in the contested areas, i.e. via a referendum. There have, however, been accusations of partiality against HoF by some groups who said the chamber did not accept their will.¹⁸

Besides even after referendums were held there were occasions in which enforcement was an issue. For example, a 2004 vote to award more than 400 kebeles to Oromia along its border with Somalia has not been implemented in the decades since.

The federal government has the responsibility and the duty to address territorial disputes. But a lack of trust for it among several affected communities hinders it and perpetuates cycles of violence. The authorities in Addis Ababa must move beyond short-term, self-interested political gains and exhibit genuine intent to resolve the issues.¹⁹ The federal government must not be perceived as siding with one or another party. It should signal, through public forums in which opinions and views across the spectrum are voiced without restriction, its willingness to address the issues. It should communicate its commitment to impartiality.

The National Dialogue Commission, whose term was extended in May for another year, could be a vital avenue. The plans to address the issue of disputed areas need to be clear and transparent, and conscious efforts must be made to bring involved actors on either side onboard.

On occasions in which an administrative change has been made, like in Raya-Alamata and Tselemti, there need to be cautions lest the move creates a new batch of displaced people.

Besides government officials, international organizations and humanitarian workers should understand the need to build and rebuild trust among communities affected by border-related violence. Returning the displaced must be supplemented by paving ways for communities to live together without resorting to retaliation. As much work as needs to be done for those displaced to be returned, more enterprise is required to build post-conflict social harmony.

Wagaye in Alamata said that federal soldiers are joined by elders and religious leaders in churches to preach the importance of social harmony. “They say the Tigrayans were displaced into Mehoni, the Amharas were displaced into Kobo and that we all suffer the same predicament. In a way it’s true” she said.

But she is not sure if such sermons will be enough.

1. Also spelt Darraa in Afaan Oromo ↩︎
2. While there’s no comprehensive data on how many videos of brutal killings have been released, anecdotal evidence suggests the emergence of such videos in large numbers coincided with the breaking of the Tigray War (2020-2022). In most instances the perpetrators depicted in such videos are government security forces or affiliated militias. But there have been cases in which the violent acts were committed by rebels or members of anti-government armed groups. ↩︎
3. The killings of the two teenagers happened during a bout of violence in September but only came to public attention two months later after a social media influencer travelled to the village and interviewed Dereje’s father. The authorities were not happy about the uproar caused by the interview and the emergence of the video prompting the influencer to go into hiding. ↩︎
4. This sentiment gained impetus during the civil war in northern Ethiopia in which areas disputed by Tigray and Amhara regions fell under the latter’s control emboldening nationalists to take similar armed steps in other disputed areas like Derra. ↩︎
5. This was a time when Ethiopia appeared to be trying to address its age old ailments through the formation of a string of commissions and committees. A commission for reconciliation was established around the same time. ↩︎
6. At the time Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its partners controlled all the 547 seats in parliament and dissent was a rarity. So, it’s a testament to the level of controversy surrounding the proclamation that 33 parliamentarians voted no to its adoption. Almost a year later, the EPRDF would be dissolved and Prosperity Party would take its place. ↩︎
7. The Ethiopian Constitution does not mention ‘identity related questions or issues’. Rather it discusses the rights to self-rule and self-determination in its preamble, articles 39, 49, 52, 62 and 88. So there was no constitutional clarity on what constitutes an ‘identity related question.’ Besides that the mandate to resolve any disputes between regional governments over territories (and the use of resources like rivers and tax collection) was given (Article 48) to the higher house of parliament- the House of Federations (HoF). The HoF addresses territorial disputes based on demographic realities and the desire of people living in contested areas. While the constitution doesn’t specify which (demography or the consent of the people) takes precedent to decide where a certain territory should be included, Proclamation 251/2001 decreed to ascertain the powers and responsibilities of the HoF, states that only if the House cannot decide the placement of a territory based on settlement patterns that it will proceed to “seek the peoples interest and consent as to redefining the disputable border”. The people consent is sought by holding a referendum. The now defunct Ministry of Federal Affairs was also established as a governmental body tasked with addressing inter-governmental relations among regional governments. The Ministry (now replaced by the Ministry of Peace) over the years performed three major tasks with regard to territorial disputes: preventing and mitigating conflicts, ensure decisions passed through a referendum were carried out and facilitate disputing regions to resolve their differences by themselves without reaching the HoF. So with these constitutional and institutional frameworks already in place, questions were raised as to what legal basis there was for an Administrative Boundaries and Identity Issues Commission, that directly responded to the Prime Minister. The argument put forward by the new government at the time was that the commission was necessitated by the shortcomings of these mechanisms to address the issues including disputable areas incorporated into regions without or before the constitutional framework was established. It was also stated that the commission’s mandates were advisory and not executive. ↩︎
8. In recent years, the authorities’ unofficial blueprint of intervention when communal clashes occur over territorial contestations include: deploying federal forces (mostly the army) to conflict affected areas and holding consultation among political and cultural elites from the communities. The impacts of these remedies, however appear to be only short-lived with violence returning after some time. ↩︎
9. With the Afari forces providing unreserved support for the army in its campaign in Tigray, the sentiment among some Somalis was that their neighbours had the favours of the federal government. On the other hand, an Afari university lecturer interviewed by EI has said with geopolitical entanglements involving Ethiopia, its eastern neighbour Somalia and the breakaway republic of Somaliland throughout 2024, Jigjiga became very important for the federal authorities leaving Afar in a disadvantaged position should disputes intensify. ↩︎
10. The Afar-Somali clashes are ripe with the potential to impact entire the country- given that the areas in dispute are along landlocked Ethiopia’s lifeline of importing essential products- the Addis- Djibouti railway line. Furthermore, there have been signs of spillover to neighbouring Somalia and Djibouti. In August last year, three people were killed in Djibouti in communal clashes among members of Afar and Issa-Somali communities. ↩︎
11. Historically, the two communities fought along territories with the Somali clans, including the Issa, pushing the Afar northwards as argued by the political historian John Markakis in his 2003 article, “Anatomy of a Conflict: Afar and Ise in Ethiopia.” With the current federalist administration allocating regional states for both Afars and Somalis, the clashes further took structural shape. ↩︎
12. Of Ethiopia’s numerous territorial disputes, the most convoluted with grave consequences, arguably, pits Tigray region with its southern neighbour Amhara. The dispute in question is about two swaths of areas: Western Tigray (known simply in Amhara as Wolkayit) and Southern Tigray (known generally in Amhara as Raya). ↩︎
13. The political scholar Alemayehu Woldemariam who was born and raised in Alamata argues that the Raya community is not a unique ethnic group but a cultural community that defies categorization with complex origins through intermingling and intermarriage. Rayans do not share a “mutually understandable language”; as they speak the tongues of Tigray, Amhara, Afar etc. “Raya refers to the cultural area inhabited by a diverse group of people” living in southern Tigray and adjacent districts in Amhara. ↩︎
14. The total number of formerly displaced people that returned to Alamata is not clear but one report in July 2024 estimated the figure to eventually be as high as 19000. ↩︎
15. Known in Amhara as Telemt ↩︎
16. This mirrors one of the arguments Amhara political elites brought against Tigray during the EPRDF era in which they claimed thousands of ethnic Tigrayans were artificially settled in fertile Wolkayit areas in what could amount to demographic re-engineering. ↩︎
17. FDRE Constitution Article 48 ↩︎
18. Amhara community groups in Western Tigray/Wolkayit had thrown this accusation during the EPRDF era. ↩︎
19. Opposition political figure Jawar Mohammed, in a highly publicised interview, accused federal authorities of seeing disputes among different communities and political entities as means of power consolidation. ↩︎

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This is the author’s viewpoint. However, Ethiopia Insight will correct clear factual errors.

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