A letter shared on Facebook, purportedly from the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), announcing its withdrawal from an alliance of seven Ethiopian armed groups, has been dismissed as fake by the ONLF. The letter, which was widely circulated on social media, claimed that the ONLF was not part of the Ethiopian People's Forces Coalition for Survival.
The ONLF, through an official statement issued by its chairman, Abdirahman Sheikh, has completely denied the information widely circulated claiming that it joined the armed forces coalition led by the TPLF. The ONLF clarified that a handful of individuals, led by the former chairman of the ONLF, Abdirahman Sheikh Mahdi, are illegally using the party's name while holding no position whatsoever within the party.
The Ethiopian People's Forces Alliance for Survival was announced on 21 September 2026, bringing together seven rebel groups fighting the Ethiopian government in different parts of the country. The alliance includes the Fano militia in Amhara, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front, Benishangul People's Liberation Movement, and the Gumuz People's Democratic Movement.
A review of ONLF's X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook accounts to confirm the letter's validity yielded no positive results. However, ONLF chairman Abdirahman Mohamed Sheikh Mahdi did not announce its withdrawal from the alliance. The ONLF chairman responded via email to PesaCheck, stating that the letter currently circulating on social media claiming that ONLF is not a member of the Alliance is not an official document of the legitimate ONLF leadership.
The ONLF stated on X that the document circulated on 21 September 2026 was not issued by its leadership. A comparison between legitimate ONLF letters and the one under scrutiny shows differences in layout and identifying features. PesaCheck has looked into the letter shared on Facebook claiming that ONLF announced withdrawal from an alliance of seven Ethiopian armed groups and found it to be fake.
PesaCheck is East Africa's first public finance fact-checking initiative, co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent's largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. The initiative seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world.
The fact-check was written by a PesaCheck fact-checker based in Ethiopia and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Mary Mutisya and chief copy editor Stephen Ndegwa. The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck's managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
Key points
- The letter claiming ONLF withdrawal from the Ethiopian armed groups alliance is fake.
- ONLF chairman Abdirahman Mohamed Sheikh Mahdi did not announce its withdrawal from the alliance.
- PesaCheck found the letter to be fake after verifying with ONLF's official statements and social media accounts.
