Zecharias Zelalem

Ahead of the sec­ond an­niver­sary of the start of Ethiopia’s civ­il war, there are con­cerns about the lat­est peace deal.

The Ethiopi­an forces and Tigrayan rebels failed to progress in peace talks dur­ing a five-month truce pe­ri­od.

Cit­i­zens at home and in di­as­po­ra ac­cuse the state of com­plic­i­ty in tar­get­ed mas­sacres of cer­tain eth­nic groups.

Twen­ty-two me­dia em­ploy­ees have been ar­rest­ed across Ethiopia this year alone.

A num­ber of fac­tors in­clud­ing lack of de­tails and con­flict­ing state­ments con­tin­ue to shroud the truce in mys­tery.

Amhara res­i­dents say Tigrayan fight­ers un­leashed a cam­paign of hor­ror dur­ing a five-month oc­cu­pa­tion of the area.

Civil­ians held with­out charge ac­cuse Ethiopi­an se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers of sys­tem­at­ic ex­tor­tion and in­creas­ing abuse.

The an­niver­sary of Ethiopia’s bru­tal and ex­pand­ing con­flict finds the coun­try in a seem­ing­ly in­escapable quag­mire.

Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials main­tain fo­cus of op­er­a­tions in re­gion is sus­pect­ed rebels and not civil­ians.

Ques­tions loom over the next phase of a bru­tal con­flict that has left civil­ians at risk of famine.