Introduction

The conflict that engulfed Ethiopia’s Amhara region from 2020 onward produced one of the most severe humanitarian crises in the country’s recent history. What began as a military confrontation between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (hereafter TPLF) rapidly drew in multiple armed actors, including the Oromo Liberation Army (hereafter OLA), and spread its violence across towns and rural communities far beyond the initial front lines. Ataye, a small town in the North Shewa zone of the Amhara region, became one of the most acutely affected localities. Situated at an ethno-territorial boundary and a historically contested zone, it was subjected to repeated cycles of attack, occupation, and displacement, eight rounds in total by the time these testimonies were collected.

The violence in Ataye was not incidental to the broader conflict; it reflected its logic. Armed groups moved through the town targeting specific populations, destroying economic infrastructure, and systematically using terror, killing, rape, looting, and arson as instruments of control and punishment. The consequences for civilian life were catastrophic. Livelihoods were erased, family structures were shattered, and the psychological fabric of the community was deeply damaged. Those who remained were overwhelmingly the elderly, the injured, and those without the means or physical capacity to flee.

This article draws exclusively on testimonies gathered in a focus group discussion (FGD) with internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ataye. The participants were residents who had experienced the conflict directly, some injured, some grieving, many both. Their accounts offer a rough and human record of what repeated cycles of armed violence do to an ordinary community: not only the immediate destruction, but the prolonged erosion of hope, trust, economic capacity, and psychological well-being that follows. The testimonies are presented here in narrative form, organized thematically, with the participants’ own words at the center.

The Nature of the Conflict

The violence that descended on Ataye was systematic and unrelenting. Fighters threw bombs and destroyed houses, flogged and beat residents, and moved through the town in organized formations, some pointing guns while others looted everything in sight. OLA fighters beheaded people and raped girls and women. When the TPLF controlled the town, they carried out their own severe forms of attack. Fighters burned down twenty-four out of sixty-four sheds belonging to small-scale enterprises. They wounded six people, and two died from their injuries.

Residents describe fleeing with almost nothing. “We left our homes carrying only a few clothes because the conflict was so dangerous,” one woman recalled. Another described falling into a drainage system while trying to escape during the TPLF invasion, sustaining spinal cord injuries that left her unable to move properly. “I cannot tell the whole story,” she said. “It was horrible.”

The dead were visible everywhere. Residents saw many dead bodies of young people in the street, and many begged the soldiers to finish them. Two close neighbors lost their children in their arms. The words to describe it, one participant said, do not exist.

Who Was Targeted

OLA fighters came looking for men. When they entered a neighborhood, they asked specifically about young boys, youth, and adult men, people they believed might one day take revenge. When they found them, they killed them on the spot. Women who tried to intervene were shoved aside. Elderly people who begged were sometimes spared, though not always. Girls and women were raped, though many chose to hide what had happened to them.

One mother described hiding her son under a blanket the first time OLA fighters came; they robbed the sheep and left. The second time, she was in a neighbor’s house, a monk’s home, when fighters forced their way in. They searched the rooms. Hearing them threaten her, her son came out to defend her.

“They shot him right in front of me. It took only one bullet. After that shot, I hid him and covered his cold body with a blanket; I thought they had only wounded him. I did not know he had left me.”

When a second group of fighters arrived and asked if there were men in the house, she told them her son had just been shot. She ran to check on him. He was long gone.

Another woman had tried to hide two men from the neighborhood, knowing what discovery would mean. The fighters found them and killed them. On different occasions, girls and women were taken and raped, though many chose to conceal what had happened to them. Intimidating the elderly was, as one participant put it, “a normal practice throughout the conflict.”

“Whenever I think of that incident, I feel pain in every part of my body.”

Eight Rounds of War

By the eighth round of conflict, something had shifted. In earlier attacks, residents could flee to other kebeles (hereafter local community administration) when they heard gunshots. Oromo neighbors had, on more than one occasion, saved people’s lives. “Oromo people saved my life,” one woman said. But gradually, she noted, people changed their attitude and began supporting the fighters and looting property.

The eighth round drove people from their homes entirely. “It is not easy to forcibly flee the place where you were born and raised,” said one man from the local community administration, 01.

One woman who had prepared fast food for a living had her workplace and home burned by OLA. When she received a replacement place to live and work, TPLF burned that too. During Ramadan, on the second day, they began burning houses in a row; twelve houses turned to ash. She tried to run when she heard screaming, but a bullet struck her right leg. A man from her neighborhood was burned alive inside his house in the local community administration 02.

For a woman from the local community administration 01 who had lived in her home for forty years, who got married there, and gave birth there, the loss was total. Her daughter had spent six years working in the Gulf States, cleaning restrooms and cooking in a foreign country, to build houses and send materials home. Everything turned to ash. “My daughter spent her youth cleaning restrooms and cooking in a foreign land for nothing,” she said. “Whenever I think of that incident, I feel pain in every part of my body.”

What the Conflict Left Behind

In the wake of repeated violence, the town is haunted by its consequences. Orphaned children, mental instability, aggressiveness, hopelessness, and a pervasive sense of insecurity have taken root. People have developed the belief that OLA or TPLF will return and kill them. They do not plan for the future. They do not think about educating themselves or their children.

“We do not think about tomorrow,” one woman said. “We start from scratch.”

Trauma has reorganized daily life. Gunfire is the most immediate trigger; even rumors of fighters’ return send people into a state of alert. Small businesses closed for two days when the TPLF captured the nearby town of Kobo. “When I saw closed doors, I suspected something was going on,” one resident said, “and asked myself what would happen next and why people were shutting themselves inside their homes.”

Relationships have fractured. People used to resolve conflicts easily among themselves; now disagreements escalate with neighbors and even with their own children, without the capacity to calm down. Women who had been raped reported extreme psychological reactions. Others were seen celebrating that they were free of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, a sign of both relief and the depths of what they had endured.

The productive heart of the town has been hollowed out. Before the conflict, Ataye served as a business hub; its people were industrious and self-sufficient. Now the merchants, youth, and investors have fled. Only the old, the weak, and the financially incapable remain. One woman whose husband had worked as a mason described him as now bedridden from a stroke brought on by anger and frustration. “I am an old, sick woman,” she said. “If something happens, I cannot run or leave the area. I will die here.”

Coping and Hope

Despite everything, people reach for what they can. They visit family and church, drink holy water, and pray. They travel to rural churches for annual celebrations. They practice traditional healing. In local community administration 01, some young people have begun attending martial arts and football programs. Many adults and children have returned to church and mosque regularly.

But hopelessness is growing alongside these efforts. People find it increasingly difficult to communicate with one another, and aggressiveness is rising. None of the participants had returned to work. Whenever the prospect of resuming work appears, they hear that TPLF and OLA are coming again. The cycle repeats.

When participants were asked what kind of support they needed, the answers were consistent: economic assistance to restart their businesses, and training for children, youth, and adults alike to begin overcoming traumatic experiences and healing their wounds.

“If things improve in the town,” one woman said, “we have hope that we will make a difference and improve our lives.”

That hope, fragile, insistent, and hard-won existence, is what remains in Ataye.