News: City police say three killed, two injured during shootout with "extremist Fano" members in Addis Abeba
Addis Abeba – The Addis Abeba Police Commission has announced that its members have taken “actions against the extremist Fano leadership and members” following a shootout between security forces and group members that took place near the Millennium Hall in the capital Addis Abeba today.
The shootout resulted in the killing of one civilian and two Fano members. Two police officers, Sergeant Arrarsa Teshome and Constable Matias Petros were also injured. The police named Endeshaw Getnet as the civilian who was killed “by the extremists” for refusing to cooperate when they “forced him to give them a ride”, the city police said.
“The members of the extremist group, Nahusenai Andarge Tarekun, Abenezer Gashaw Abate, and Habtamu Andarge Tesema were intercepted after surveillance by security forces while on a mission to carry out a terrorist attack in our city, Addis Abeba,” the city police claimed in a statement issued a while ago.
The statement further said the police were “attempting to arrest the terrorists before they committed their acts of terrorism” but a shootout ensued in Bole Kifle Ketema, Woreda 3, around the Millennium Hall resulting in the reported death and injuries.
“The extremists were asked to surrender but refused to do so,” the police said. The “leader Nahusenai Andarge Tareken was injured and has died after being sent to the hospital. Habtamu Andarge was killed during the shootout,” the statement said, adding that the third member of the group, Abenezer Gashau, “was arrested without injury.”
Further details will made available to the public after investigations, the city police said. This is the first known report by the police of a shootout involving members of the Fano militants and government security forces in the capital city.
The incident came one year into the start of the armed confrontations between government forces and Fano militants which started in April last year after the Ethiopian Joint Security and Intelligence Task Force announced that it had started “taking decisive measures” against “extremist forces” that it accused of “trying to take control of regional state power by destroying the constitutional order in the Amhara regional state.”
Despite an extension by Ethiopian lawmakers of the six-month state of emergency initially declared in August last year by four more months, Amhara region continues to grapple with a region-wide militarized conflict involving federal and regional state forces on the one hand and the Fano militia on the other. AS
