Sources
Every source behind this report
One entry per source, with what it supports and where to read it. Sources are grouped by what kind of body produced them, not ranked by credibility: a state commission, an international organisation, a peer-reviewed journal and a diaspora association do different work, and the reader is entitled to see which is which.
61
sources linked and readable
1
claim still named in the text without a link
1
figure withdrawn from earlier drafts, and recorded as withdrawn
How to read this list. A source appearing here is not endorsed by this report; it is disclosed. Where an organisation campaigns, we say so. Where an attribution is denied by the party accused, we link the denial. Where a finding is contested, including by those who dispute our own reading, we link the contest rather than omit it. Where a figure is our own computation from a dataset rather than a published figure of the organisation named, the entry says so. Where a source states a reservation about its own findings, we carry the reservation and not the headline. And where a peer-reviewed article carries a published correction, we link the correction beside it.
Institutional and treaty bodies
UN OSAPG / OHCHRPrevention tool, not a determination
Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes (2014). The eight common risk factors this report sets its record against.
ICHREEA/HRC/54/CRP.2
Acute Risk of Further Atrocity Crimes in Ethiopia, 3 October 2023 — the finding that all eight common risk factors were present.
ICHREEA/HRC/54/CRP.3
Comprehensive investigative findings and legal determinations, 13 October 2023.
ICHREEA/HRC/54/55
Report of 18 September 2023, including testimony from Oromo residents of Kellem Wollega and West Wollega and the three incidents the Commission was able to verify.
International Criminal CourtCore legal texts
Rome Statute, Articles 6 and 7, and the Elements of Crimes.
World Council of Churches13 November 2025
Letter of condolences on the killings in Arsi Zone. Its wording is careful: at least twenty killed who may be members of the Church.
Amnesty International (2020)AFR 25/2358/2020
Beyond law enforcement: at least 39 extrajudicial executions of Oromo civilians in the Guji zones, and at least 10,000 detained on suspicion of supporting the OLA.
US State Department2023 and 2024 country reports
Killings in Chobe district; access to western Oromia extremely restricted; the Koree Nageenyaa targeting ethnic and religious minorities and political opponents.
UN OHCHR / Human Rights CouncilReported by Human Rights Watch
Non-renewal of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE), October 2023 — the lapse of the only independent international investigative mechanism.
UN OSAPG / OHCHR
Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes — the UN's own risk-factor methodology, used in this report to structure the pattern analysis.
UN Office on Genocide Prevention
Mandate and early-warning function of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide.
International Court of Justice
Croatia v. Serbia — the pattern-of-conduct standard, under which intent may be inferred only where it is the sole reasonable inference.
UN OHCHR, via VOA
The UN human rights office on the impact of drone strikes on the population, November 2023.
UN OHCHRPrimary document
Update on the human rights situation in Ethiopia in 2023, published June 2024 — 1,106 people killed, 740 in Amhara and 366 in Oromia, across 160 incidents. State actors were held responsible for 70 per cent of the documented incidents (415 of 594), which is not the same as 70 per cent of the deaths, and this report does not conflate the two.
UN OHCHR
Press statement of the High Commissioner accompanying the 2023 update, 14 June 2024.
United States CongressPrimary text
H.Res.937, 119th Congress, introduced 9 December 2025 by Representative Buddy Carter with Representative Joe Wilson. It calls for Global Magnitsky sanctions, suspension of non-humanitarian aid, and a public determination under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act on whether acts of genocide or crimes against humanity have occurred in Ethiopia. It is a simple House resolution, still in committee and non-binding even if adopted; this report describes it as a demand placed on the record, not as United States policy.
GovTrack
Legislative status of H.Res.937 — first stage of the process, referred to committee.
US Department of State
2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Ethiopia — citing OHCHR for at least 1,351 civilians killed nationally in 2023, and recording unlawful killings by government forces in Horo Guduru Wollega among other zones.
UN OHCHR via ReliefWeb
Full text of the 2023 update, with the breakdown of 594 incidents and 8,253 victims.
International human rights organisations
Human Rights Watch
Tole and Sene, June 2022: about 400 Amhara civilians killed over eight hours while security forces did little to protect them. The anchor source for the corroborated range used in Figure I.
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Atrocity Alert No. 306, June 2022 — an independent range of 260 to more than 500 dead at Tole. Not to be confused with GPE.
Amnesty International
“No One Came to My Rescue”, March 2026 — conflict-related sexual violence in Sayo and Anfillo woredas, Kellem Wallaga, 2020–2024. Amnesty attributes the documented cases principally to OLA fighters; one survivor also names an ENDF soldier. The briefing has been criticised by Oromo advocacy organisations for insufficient coverage of government forces, and this report records that criticism.
Amnesty International
Press statement accompanying the briefing: abuses that may amount to war crimes.
Human Rights Watch
Merawi, January 2024 — the army summarily executed dozens of civilians; the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission put the toll at 45. State responsibility, not failure to protect.
Human Rights Watch
World Report 2026, Ethiopia chapter.
Amnesty International
Mass arbitrary detention in the Amhara Region, November 2024 and January 2025.
Physicians for Human Rights
Conflict-related sexual and reproductive violence, February 2026.
Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention
Active Genocide Alert for Ethiopia (Amhara), maintained since September 2023. A civil-society determination, not a judicial finding, and reported as such.
Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention
Statement on ongoing ethnic massacres of the Amhara people in the Oromia region — source of the figure of at least 1,566 killed in Oromia in 2022.
Amnesty International
Gawa Qanqa, Guliso district, West Wellega, 1 November 2020 — at least 54 Amhara killed, gathered in a school compound. Amnesty records that Ethiopian Defence Forces withdrew from the area the day before, unexpectedly and without explanation.
Ethiopian Human Rights CommissionRelay
Statement of 4 July 2022 on Mender 20 and Mender 21, calling for urgent reinforcement of security forces, relayed here. A state body, and the only Ethiopian institution to have spoken publicly on this attack.
Peer-reviewed scholarship
Weidmann, N. B. (2015)Journal of Conflict Resolution 59(6)
On the Accuracy of Media-based Conflict Event Data. Matching UCDP against US military reports for Afghanistan: only 53 per cent of events appear in both.
Weidmann, N. (2016)American Journal of Political Science 60(1)
A Closer Look at Reporting Bias in Conflict Event Data. Only 28.5 per cent of deadly insurgent-initiated events in Afghanistan in 2008 were reported in international news.
Vesco, Randahl, Hegre, Högbladh & Yilmaz (2026)Journal of Conflict Resolution
The Underreported Death Toll of Wars: a survey of UCDP coders, who believe their own fatality counts are understated.
Öberg & Yilmaz (2025)Research & Politics
Measurement Issues in Conflict Event Data.
Davenport & Ball (2002)Journal of Conflict Resolution 46(3)
Views to a Kill: source selection and its effects, Guatemala.
Dietrich & Eck (2020)International Interactions 46(6)
Known Unknowns: media bias in the reporting of political violence.
Journal of Oromo Studies (2026)The account that argues against this report
Invisible Conflict and Displacements: the crisis in Oromia. Documents killings of Oromo civilians attributed to Fano in these zones, and sets out the Greater Amhara claim.
Zelalem Teferra (2017)Journal of Eastern African Studies
Shifting trajectories of inter-ethnic relations in Western Ethiopia: Gidda and Kiremu districts, East Wollega. Fieldwork through the early 2000s, on the exact districts of this report.
Feleke HabtamuSSRN
Inter-Ethnic Conflict and Eviction in Post-1991 Ethiopia: the case of Oromia, with emphasis on East Wollega.
International Journal on Minority and Group Rights
“The Impact of Incitement by Public Officials in the Commission of Genocide: The Case of Ethnic Amharas in the Oromia Region”, vol. 32 no. 3 (2025), p. 409. The study frames the speeches it examines as material that may have contributed to the killings; this report cites it at that level.
Journal of Contemporary African Studies
Colonial narratives and systemic hatred against the Amhara (2025).
Genealogy (MDPI)
Ethnic tensions and national instability in Ethiopia: analysing risks of ethnic cleansing, 9:2 (2025), 37.
Population Health MetricsOpen access
McGowan, Cassidy-Seyoum, Ekoriko, Alhaffar, Cassini, Palmer, Warsame and Checchi, “Conflict-attributable mortality in Tigray Region, Ethiopia: evidence from a survey of the Tigrayan diaspora”, 23:19 (2025), DOI 10.1186/s12963-025-00380-2, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. More than 102,000 deaths among those aged fifteen and over, of which 72.3 per cent from intentional injuries. A standardised diaspora survey, not a census, and the benchmark against which this report measures the undercount in event-coded data.
Ghent University, Prof. Jan Nyssen
Casualty recording for the Tigray war, with Every Casualty Counts; open database at EthiopiaTigrayWar.com. Nyssen’s published estimates have been revised across versions — 385,000 to 600,000 civilian deaths in October 2022, then an average of 518,000 with bounds of 311,000 to 808,000 in January 2023. This report cites Ghent as a modelled estimate that has moved, not as a settled figure, and anchors its own calibration on the peer-reviewed study instead.
Frontiers in Political Science
Dessie, Moges, Salemot and Gessesse, “Global media framing of conflicts in Ethiopia: a content analysis of war narratives and hegemonic interests” (2026), DOI 10.3389/fpos.2026.1731435. 1,412 stories from the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera and CGTN, January 2020 to March 2025. Tigray drew 77.2 per cent of coverage, Amhara 2.7 per cent and Oromia 0.4 per cent. The lead authors are based at Bahir Dar University, in the Amhara region, which readers should weigh for themselves.
Frontiers in Political ScienceCorrection
Published correction to the above, DOI 10.3389/fpos.2026.1882770. Cited here because an article should not be relied on without its corrections.
Press and specialist media
Reuters, February 2024Relay: JURIST
The Koree Nageenyaa investigation. The Reuters original is not yet linked here; the findings below are carried by three independent relays, including the confirmation by the head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the figure of 1,006 arrests ordered by the committee.
Addis Standard
Relay of the Reuters investigation on the secretive Oromia security committee.
Africa Defense Forum
Relay of the same investigation.
Addis Standard
“Wollega Under Siege”, March 2025 — including the argument that Amhara elites and Fano leadership advance a claim to Wollega as historically Amhara land. This report links it because a territorial claim advanced by armed movements does not remove the protection owed to civilians, and because a report that concealed this argument would not deserve trust.
Addis Standard
Benishangul-Gumuz ruling party admits ethnic targeted killings in Metekel, February 2021.
Addis Standard
Is impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity looming in Ethiopia?
Addis Standard
More than 100 killed in a drone strike in East Gojjam, April 2025.
Al Jazeera
Worsening violence in western Ethiopia forcing civilians to flee, March 2021.
Al Jazeera
More than 80 killed in the Daletti attack, Metekel, January 2021, per the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.
European Council on Foreign Relations
Deadly Skies: drone warfare in Ethiopia — at least 449 Amhara civilians killed by aerial strikes since 2023.
The New Humanitarian
Civilian toll of Ethiopia's turn to combat drones, March 2024.
Reuters, Giulia ParaviciniOriginal
“In Ethiopia, a secret committee orders killings and arrests to crush rebels”, special report, 23 February 2024 — the original investigation. Reuters interviewed more than thirty current and former officials, judges and lawyers. It records that it found no evidence that the Prime Minister attended the committee’s meetings or issued orders to it, and this report carries that reservation.
Al Jazeera
Coverage of the same attack, recording the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’s official toll of 32 alongside Amnesty’s 54. The 32–54 range used in this report is the distance between a state commission and an international organisation, not an estimate of our own.
Addis Standard
“From Excellence to Emergency”, May 2024 — 730 schools closed and about 210,000 students displaced across the four Wollega zones, with 117 teachers and education professionals having left their posts. The same article carries the account of a student displaced from Kiramu district by what she describes as an attack by Fano, an armed group from the Amhara region; this report does not cite the school figure while omitting that.
Addis Standard
“Education Under Siege”, October 2024 — at Agemsa Preparatory School in Horo Guduru Wollega, three students of 210 passed the Grade 12 national examination, and no female student passed.
UN OCHA, via Addis Standard
May 2022 — half a million displaced across Western Oromia; 184 schools closed in West Wollega alone with 89,000 children out of school, and 426 health facilities non-functional.
The Conversation
The same authors summarising their findings for a general readership, May 2026.
Council on Foreign Relations
Global Conflict Tracker, Ethiopia — current state of the simultaneous insurgencies in Amhara and Oromia after the June 2026 elections.
Rift Valley Institute
Conflict Trends Analysis, March 2026 — background on the political sequence from the EPRDF to the Prosperity Party.
Bertelsmann Transformation Index
BTI 2026 Ethiopia country report — independent assessment of the closure of political space.
CNN
Hawa Gelan, 4 July 2022 — carries the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’s statement on Mender 20 and Mender 21, the Prime Minister’s attribution to the OLA, and the OLA’s denial, which blames government militias. This report records the attribution as contested, because its sources do.
BBC Amharic, relayed by BorkenaRelay
Eyewitness accounts from Hawa Gelan, including infants of two to three months among the victims, and about 150 bodies recovered by the following day.
Diaspora documentation
Amhara Association of America1 September 2026
Preliminary report on the identity-based violence of 18–29 August 2026, with casualties by kebele.
OLLAAOromo advocacy
Reporting on the December 2022 killings at Gutin, giving a figure of 20 where the Journal of Oromo Studies gives 69.
Amhara Association of AmericaDocument held; public URL to be attached
Quarterly Report, January–March 2021 — the source of nine nominal lists for the Wollega zones used in the register. An advocacy organisation; its figures are reported as its own.
Amhara Association of America
Weekly war updates, 2026 series — named woredas including Horo Guduru Wollega. The route to the 2026 record this report currently lacks.
Genocide Prevention in EthiopiaDocument held; direct URL to be attached
Atrocity Report, 6 February 2023, on Ano town, East Wollega — 23 names in Latin and Amharic script. Registered 501(c)(3), EIN 85-4123186.
Martin Plaut (relay)
Field appeal of 29 August 2026 on Gida Ayana. The toll of more than four hundred that it carries is uncorroborated and is not adopted by this report.
Borkena
Reported killings by Geda Commando units in East Wollega, August 2026, and reported displacement into the Ali forest and a further offensive in Hawa Gelan, September 2026. Diaspora outlet; reported, not corroborated, and counted in no figure here.
Amhara Association of America
“They attacked us for the simple reason of being Amhara” — dedicated report on Hawa Gelan: at least 308 killed and 36 injured in Menders 20 and 21, Lemlem kebele. The nominal source for the 178 named individuals recorded in the register.
Data
Central Statistical Agency of EthiopiaRead from the table itself
Population and Housing Census 2007, Oromiya Region, Part I, Table 3.1 — the denominator used in this report. Archived by the World Bank Microdata Library.
ACLEDExpert comment
Fano militia activity in western Oromia, including the attribution of the 19 August 2026 convoy ambush to the Bizamo Command.
ACLED
Event-level export of 3 September 2026, four Wollega zones. All ACLED figures in this report are computations from that export, not ACLED publications. The export is itself incomplete: the tool truncates at 12,000 rows and the data ends in September 2025.
geoBoundaries
ADM1 and ADM2 administrative boundaries for Ethiopia, used for every map in this report.
ACLED — Ethiopia Peace Observatory
Weekly record, 2–8 July 2022 — at least 150 killed and more than 45 injured at Mender 20, Lemlem kebele, Hawa Gelan woreda. The same entry gives at least 338 killed at Tole on 18 June, a figure that sits inside the corroborated range this report uses.
Outstanding, and withdrawn
What is not yet closed, and what has been taken out. This section is part of the apparatus, not an appendix to it. A report that keeps a record of its own retractions is easier to trust than one that quietly revises.
- The World Council of Churches condolences.
- The figure of 162,000–378,000 attributed to Ghent University in earlier drafts of this report could not be traced to a specific Ghent publication. It has been withdrawn, and the undercount factor recomputed against the peer-reviewed estimate: at least tenfold, rather than sixteen to thirty-eight.