Three Lost School Years: Two Million Amhara Children Still Out of Class as War Goes On

Students leave school in Lalibela, Amhara region, in 2013. File photo; the image does not show the schools discussed in this report. Photo: Adam Jones / CC BY-SA 2.0

By Kaleb Yekuno Amlak

On the morning of September 7, 2026, families in Dera Woreda of South Gonder brought their children to the primary schools in Sana and Mecho to register for the new school year. According to the weekly war update of the Amhara Association of America, a group based in the United States that documents rights violations in the region, government drones struck the school in Sana early in the morning and then hit the school in Mecho shortly after. The Amhara Association of America said the strikes caused “significant civilian casualties” because children and parents had gathered for registration, but it said the exact number of dead and wounded had not been confirmed. The Ethiopian Government has not, as far as Ethiopian Review could find, publicly responded to the report, and no independent investigator has been able to reach the site.

Six weeks later, on October 20, a drone struck Sana Elementary School again, this time during morning classes. A teacher at the school told Addis Standard that more than 150 students were in the morning shift and that “there was no armed people in the school or nearby.” Preliminary reports said at least six children were killed and more than 20 wounded; other accounts gave higher numbers that no one has verified. Several eyewitnesses told DW Amharic the drone hit the school, while others said it hit the area around it, as Mereja Media reported. The teacher added that many of their students came back after two or three years away. The Ethiopian military did not respond to Addis Standard’s request for comment, and the Ethiopian Government has not publicly responded.

That is the school year Amhara’s children are living through in the fourth year of the war in Amhara between Abiy Ahmed’s government and Fano forces.

The bureau’s claim: 5.5 million in class

On October 26, 2026, the head of the Amhara Education Bureau, Tilahun Workneh, said 5.5 million students were attending classes in the 2026/27 school year, as reported by Tikvah Education and Tikvah University. Tilahun Workneh gave the figure at a first quarter review in Bahir Dar and said the regional government, the bureau and residents had worked together so that schools “in every area” were opened. The bureau’s own target for the year is 7.6 million students, from preprimary to Grade 12, according to the state owned Amhara Media Corporation.

Even if the claim is accepted as true, the bureau’s own numbers leave about 2.1 million children out of class: 7.6 million minus 5.5 million. But there are reasons to treat the 5.5 million figure with caution.

First, the bureau gave no breakdown by zone or grade. Second, it does not match the bureau’s earlier numbers. As of September 10, 2026, the last day of the official registration window, the bureau said more than 4.7 million students, or about 62 percent of the target, had registered, according to The Reporter (October 3, 2026). The bureau’s public relations head, Getachew Biyazn, said at the time that registration would not be allowed to drag on into October as it had in earlier years. The October claim means that about 800,000 more children enrolled after the window closed, and that every registered child is still attending. The bureau has not explained either point. Third, the bureau has a record of changing figures. For the 2025/26 year, Tilahun Workneh said about 4.4 million students attended, as reported by DW Amharic in August 2026, while Getachew Biyazn told Fana “more than 4.1 million” and a review of regional data by Borkena found 3.96 million.

What teachers, parents and witnesses on X say

We searched public posts on X and other sources from September 15 to November 2, 2026, in English and Amharic, for accounts from teachers, parents, residents and independent observers. No post we found confirmed the 5.5 million figure or offered any independent count. Several posts contradict the bureau’s statement that schools are open and safe “in every area.”

Strikes on schools in session. Besides the Sana strike, the account Amhara War Update reported on October 2 that a drone hit a primary school “with students and teachers inside” in Fogera Woreda, South Gonder, on September 30. On October 12, the account Ras Menelik reported an air strike on Enjafat secondary school in Lasta Woreda, North Wollo. Ethiopian Review could not verify either report.
A teacher’s count at Sana. One account that follows the conflict quoted a Sana teacher as saying the morning shift held more than 150 students, the same figure the teacher gave Addis Standard. This is consistent with the bureau’s claim that some children have returned, and the strike that followed raises questions about their safety.
Soldiers in school compounds. On October 12, a widely followed account posted images it said showed government forces had dug a trench inside a school compound near Moret and Jihur in North Shewa. Ethiopian Review could not verify the images. If authentic, they would contradict reports that military camps have been removed from schools.
Closed schools. A resident writing about Gondar on October 24 said the schools there were closed and the roads blocked while drones and helicopters circled.
Wildly different death tolls. Posts on X put the October 20 death toll at anywhere from six to “at least 27” children. One account that describes itself as Fano warned its own side that a number circulating that day was not in any source. Ethiopian Review uses only the figures given by the teacher and by the reporters who spoke to witnesses.

Posts that support the bureau come mostly from government accounts. The South Gonder Zone education office announced on September 15 that classes had begun, and the Central Gondar Zone education office posted on November 2 about its first quarter review. Neither gave attendance numbers.

A civil society count

The Amhara Regional Civil Society Organisations Council, an umbrella body for more than 400 groups, said in September that about 3.1 million children were out of school or had not registered in 2025/26, with only about 4.3 million of 7.4 million expected students registered, according to FSX Business (September 16, 2026). The council said its count did not include children newly reaching school age, so the real number could be higher. It also said it had received reports that military camps had been removed from most schools.

That last claim is not supported by the teachers who spoke to Wazema Radio (September 8, 2026). They said some school compounds in areas held by Fano were still being used “partially or entirely as camps by armed forces.” The posts on X described above, and the strikes on schools since September, also point the other way. The council itself called for an independent body of parents, elders and religious leaders to monitor schools.

How the numbers got here

The gap is not new. In August 2025, the bureau told Addis Standard that it had planned to enroll seven million students in 2024/25 but registered only 2.8 million. UNICEF reported in late 2024 that Amhara had 4.4 million children out of school, the most of any region in Ethiopia. In March 2025, Education Minister Berhanu Nega said more than four million of the country’s 7.8 million children out of school were in Amhara, as reported by Borkena citing DW Amharic.

The Education Cluster, the group led by the UN that tracks schooling in emergencies, has not published a detailed Amhara breakdown for 2026 that Ethiopian Review could find.

Schools closed, damaged and occupied

In October 2025, regional communication officials said 2,445 of the region’s 11,069 schools remained closed and more than 1,000 were being used for purposes other than teaching, according to The Reporter (October 3, 2026). Even that official count means nearly one school in four was shut.

Other counts are higher. UNICEF’s report for January to June 2024 said more than 4,459 schools in Amhara had been partially damaged or destroyed, “rendering the education system near defunct in the region.” In April 2025, the Amhara Association of America published Education Under Siege, based on data from 11 zones. It found more than 5,231 schools, or 65.1 percent of schools in those areas, were not working, 1,390 were damaged and more than 830 had been turned to military use. Regional bureau reports cited by Wazema Radio and Borkena (September 7, 2026) say more than 6,000 schools were heavily damaged across the northern war of 2020 to 2022 and the fighting that followed.

The bureau has estimated that more than 112 billion birr is needed to repair war damage, including rebuilding more than 400 schools in East Gojjam that were completely destroyed, according to Addis Standard.

The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, in its Education under Attack 2026 profile of Ethiopia, reported that about 1,200 schools across Ethiopia were used for military purposes in 2024 and 2025, a sharp jump from a handful in 2022 and 2023. Citing the Education Cluster, it said that by March 2025, 1,527 schools nationwide were being used for purposes other than teaching, most of them by armed forces.

Schools used as bases have also been hit. In January 2024, according to BBC Amharic reporting cited by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, a drone strike hit near a school in session in Merhabete Woreda, apparently aimed at an armed group camped nearby, and the school’s more than 2,600 students did not return. Teachers told Wazema Radio in September 2026 that armed forces were still using school compounds as camps.

Attacks on schools, students and teachers

The worst single attack linked to a school in this war happened on April 17, 2025, in Gedeb town, East Gojjam. Residents told the BBC that a drone struck people who had gathered to repair fences and build classrooms at the local primary school, and that more than 100 people were killed, as Ethiopia Observer reported. The woreda administrator, Mulu Gete, denied that any civilians died and said the strike targeted Fano fighters in training. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said it was monitoring the case. A search of the commission’s website found no published finding on Gedeb, more than 18 months later. In August 2025, the commission’s chief commissioner, Berhanu Adelo, said only two drone strikes had been reported to the commission that year and that both were judged not credible, according to Ethiopia Observer. That statement is hard to square with the eyewitness accounts of Gedeb gathered by the BBC.

The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack lists other attacks. On May 12, 2024, according to the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, a drone hit Gulo Primary School in Kewet Woreda, North Shewa, killing two civilians and injuring nine, among them a female teacher. On November 5, 2024, according to DW, drone strikes in the town of Zibst hit a market, an elementary school and a health center, and residents said up to 51 people may have died. DW also reported that the UN human rights office documented 18 drone strikes that killed 248 civilians between August and December 2023. The army chief, Field Marshal Birhanu Jula, told the national broadcaster, as quoted by DW, “When we find a group of extremists, we strike with drones. But civilians will not be targeted.” Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2026 records more strikes in 2025, including one in East Gojjam on February 20 that killed 16 people, children among them.

Teachers have also been attacked by fighters on the Fano side in some areas, although not a common occurance. Human Rights Watch reported that Fano forces in the Gojjam zones abducted and threatened teachers to stop schools from opening, and that on March 20, 2025, gunmen in Merawi abducted and later killed teachers they accused of breaking a general strike called by Fano. These crimes have been condemned by several Fano fighters and supporters across the Amhara region. The number killed is disputed: Human Rights Watch said four, the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack recorded five, and Wazema Radio (March 26, 2025) and Addis Standard, citing the regional communication bureau, reported 11. In February 2025, families told Addis Standard that 13 teachers had been taken from Kore Elementary School in North Gojjam by men they identified as Fano, with a ransom of 50,000 birr demanded for each one.

Fano is an armed Amhara movement whose members describe it as a local self defense force formed when Amhara towns and farms came under attack. For three years, some Fano units kept rural schools closed, and communities negotiated with them one area at a time. In other areas, Fano themselves were seen guarding schools, and in some cases, teaching students. In Enarj Enawga Woreda of East Gojjam, the woreda education head told DW Amharic that schools in areas held by fighters had not taught for three straight years. In early September 2026, the newly unified Amhara Fano National Movement issued a directive lifting those restrictions and urging parents to enroll their children for 2026/27, according to Wazema Radio (September 8, 2026). Teachers told Wazema Radio that direct intimidation from fighters had eased, as Borkena reported, but that schools were still used as camps.

The Amhara Association of America said the September 7 drone strikes on the Sana and Mecho schools came shortly after the Fano movement announced that schools would reopen, and it accused government forces of striking civilian crowds at schools. No independent body has confirmed that allegation.

A generation falling behind

The damage shows in the national exams. In May 2025, deputy bureau head Eyerus Mengistu said only 470 of the region’s 685 secondary schools would give the Grade 12 exam because of insecurity, as reported by Addis Standard and republished by Africa Press. A Grade 12 student in North Gojjam told the paper he was growing onions with his family because there was no school: “What else can we do?”

In the 2026 national exam results, Amhara’s pass rate was 15.56 percent, with 15,225 students passing, according to Addis Insight’s summary of Ministry of Education figures. Ethiopian Review’s own calculation from those figures suggests only about 98,000 Amhara students sat the exam, a small number for a region that planned to register more than seven million students. The pass rate does not count the children who never reached the exam.

Demis Endris, a deputy bureau head, said in 2025: “If the situation persists, tomorrow, an Amhara mother will not have a child to graduate from university.” Education experts quoted by the state owned Amhara Media Corporation in August 2026 warned that the long closures had stolen years of development from a generation of future doctors, engineers and teachers.

A child who was seven when schools in rural Gojjam closed in 2023 is now ten and may never have learned to read. In a 2024 submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Human Rights Watch cited survey data showing that 40 percent of Ethiopian girls were married before age 18, and noted that married or pregnant girls rarely return to school. The UN verified 844 grave violations against children in Ethiopia in 2024, according to the Secretary General’s report cited by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack. A BBC investigation counted 2,697 documented rape cases in Amhara between 2023 and 2025, which it said were committed by both the army and Fano.

What the Ethiopian Government says it is doing

The federal and regional governments point to a school building campaign called “Education for Generations.” Regional president Arega Kebede told the regional council in July that 233 schools had been built in Amhara under the program in the past year, according to the Amhara Media Corporation. Getachew Biyazn, the bureau’s public relations head, told Fana that 1,829 schools had been completed, and it is not clear whether the two officials were counting the same things. None of these figures has been independently verified. The state owned Amhara Media Corporation has reported that officials in Awi Zone aimed to enroll 476,588 pupils after a community led repair drive, and that all 125 city schools in Dessie reopened on September 15.

Many of these projects depend on money and labor from local communities. The closures that teachers and local officials described to DW Amharic and Wazema Radio are in rural areas where fighting goes on and where schools have been bombed, closed or occupied. The Amhara Association of America recorded fighting and rights violations in more than 11 woredas across eight Amhara zones in the single week of September 7 to 13.

On October 3, 2026, Mulunesh Desie, the region’s social sector coordinator, told The Reporter that the regional government was finalizing a directive to create a regional education fund and foundation, with the goal of putting it into effect within the current fiscal year. Ethiopian Review found no public record, as of November 2, that the directive has been adopted. Arega Kebede told the regional council on October 1 that education would be a central part of the region’s next five year plan, and he named high dropout rates as a lasting problem.

International support is shrinking. Human Rights Watch reported that U.S. aid cuts in 2025 hit Ethiopia hard. UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal for 2026 aims to reach 374,093 children with education across all of Ethiopia, a small share of the need in Amhara alone.

Accountability

Ethiopian law already covers these acts. Article 270 of the Criminal Code of 2004, as quoted by Human Rights Watch, makes it a crime in time of armed conflict to destroy or seize property such as schools in violation of international humanitarian law, with prison terms of five to 25 years. Human Rights Watch noted in 2024 that Ethiopia had not endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, the international pledge to protect schools from attack and military use that most African Union members have signed. Ethiopian Review found no record that Ethiopia has endorsed it since.

Ethiopian Review found no public record of any soldier, commander or official being charged for the drone strikes at or near schools in Gedeb, Zibst, Kewet or Dera, or for the military use of school buildings. Human Rights Watch says the transitional justice process “effectively stalled” in 2025 and that “impunity for serious crimes and abuses remained the norm.” Nor has anyone, as far as public records show, been prosecuted for the killings and abductions of teachers in Merawi and North Gojjam.

Several questions have no public answer. Where are the 5.5 million students the bureau says are in class, zone by zone and grade by grade? How many of the 4.7 million registered by September 10 are still attending after the strikes on schools in Dera, Fogera and Lasta? How many schools are still used by the Ethiopian National Defense Force and allied units? What happened in Sana on September 7 and again on October 20? Will the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission go there, or publish findings on Gedeb? Has the regional education fund directive been adopted? Will Ethiopia sign the Safe Schools Declaration?

The Fano movement’s decision to lift school restrictions removed one obstacle that kept rural children at home. The obstacles that teachers still describe, damaged buildings, soldiers in school compounds and drones over schoolyards, involve the forces and budgets of Abiy Ahmed’s government. Tilahun Workneh asked all sides to keep education out of politics. The bureau now says 5.5 million children are in class. Until it lets independent monitors check it, that number remains a claim.