The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it has evacuated 16 wounded individuals in need of treatment in North Wollo, Amhara region, amid ongoing fighting between federal government troops and Fano forces.

Over the past six days, two ICRC teams have been operating in and around the towns of Lalibela and Woldiya, delivering medicines and equipment to six health facilities, the organisation said on its website. The ICRC said that on 8 October it evacuated 16 critically injured government soldiers after they were handed over by Fano forces across the front line. The wounded were taken to Woldiya, where they were transferred to government forces for further medical care.

It was reported that the areas of Kulmesk, about 40km from Lalibela, and Muja, around 52km from Lalibela, were among the worst affected. “Many people have been killed or wounded in North Wollo in recent days,” said Martin Thalmann, the ICRC’s team leader in Lalibela, after returning from those areas. He said staff at local health centres had treated wounded soldiers and civilians with limited resources. According to Thalmann, sixteen critically injured detainees required urgent evacuation for surgical treatment, and for five of them it was a matter of hours to save their lives. He added that the civilian population has suffered from restrictions on movement and limited access to basic services, particularly medical care and education, all at a time when the harvest season is about to begin.

The Amhara region has been gripped by an increasingly brutal conflict between government forces and Fano militias. The Fano group says it has captured several towns and villages this week. Government forces, however, say they have made significant advances. Lieutenant General Berhanu Bekele, head of the North-West Command of the army, said the operation had been carefully planned and coordinated, and that the extremist group had been isolated from the local population. He said the army was defeating what he described as the country’s historic enemy’s conspiracy and breaking the backbone of those who carried out tasks on their behalf. In a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister, Gedion Timothewos, alleged that Eritrea and a hardline faction of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front were “funding, mobilising and directing armed groups.”