If there weren't a brutal civil war going on, you might think that the swearing in of Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiyah Med was the uneventful inauguration of an incumbent.

A new beginning. That was the message on display behind Ethiopia's Prime Minister, as he sat on a stage draped with gold ribbons as military bands marched past.

Abiyah celebrated his second five-year term last week. And to the outside world, it might have looked like all was well in Ethiopia, but those passing by, new differently.

Like Tamu Shatala, who was thinking about the ongoing and worsening civil war.

He told NPR correspondent Aitor Peralta that what hurts the most is that it's a war between brothers.

Between brothers, it is between sisters, no result. 60-year-old Hataleh Kabessa was walking past the inauguration stage on her way home from church.

She said she hopes that this new beginning means peace, and that peace she said is more important than everything else.

My fears that without action, divisive and extremist behaviors we see today are only the beginning.

This nearly-year-long civil war was on the mind of Facebook whistleblower Francis Hougen last week as well. And I'll mention here that Facebook is one of NPR's financial sponsors. We cover them like any other company.

And more than once, Hougen mentioned Ethiopia, accusing Facebook's algorithms of, quote, literally, fanning ethnic violence there.

We saw in Myanmar and are now seen in Ethiopia. Are only the opening chapters of a story so terrifying? No one wants to read the end of it.

But there are people trying to write about that story.

Prominent Facebook posters would post unverified, often inflammatory posts or rhetoric that would then go on to incite mob violence.

Freelance journalists, Sikharius Sulelem reports extensively on Ethiopia. He agrees with Hougen's assessment.

I know for very recent instance where a media outlet posted an inflammatory post blaming members of an ethnic minority for carrying out murders and kidnappings that took place on September 27th.

And this Facebook post got hundreds of shares, hundreds of likes, all sorts of reaction. And a day later, on the 28th of September, so it's barely two weeks ago, the village cited in the Facebook post was ransacked, burnt to the ground, inhabitants murdered.

And despite multiple efforts to report the post, it remains up and live as of this moment.

And consider this. In Ethiopia, old ethnic tensions are being stoked in new ways. And that means that bloody civil war with no clear end in sight is likely to be entering an even more destructive phase.

From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Wednesday, October 13th.

It's considered this from NPR. Ethiopia's civil war is a conflict between the country's new rulers and its old ones who were based in the Tigray region in the North.

And that's where the war started. But now it's expanded south and east to neighboring states. Millions of Ethiopians have been displaced.

And prominent members of the Ethiopian government or pro-government activists have been ramping up anti-Tigray in rhetoric.

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