Kidnapping has become rampant in Ethiopia's Oromia region, leaving residents of Addis Ababa scared to leave the capital, with many accusing OLA rebels. I interviewed several victims and their relatives, who paid ransoms from $350 to $8,800.
Fred Harter
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Fred Harter
@FredHarter
Reporter at The Observer. Previously in 🇪🇹
London, England
Joined October 2016
- Driving through Abala yesterday, on Afar's border with Tigray. A complete ghost town - most homes, the hospital and the police station looted during four months of TPLF occupation.
00:00 - Photos sent from Ayder hospital showing empty wards and bare cupboards. Doctors say they were forced to send all patients home last week - except emergency ones - owing to a lack of supplies, despite the recent increase in aid to Tigray.
- People traffickers are abducting Tigrayan refugees from camps in southeastern Sudan and selling them across the border to Libya, where they are tortured until they pay ransoms, several victims of the trade said.
- Dozens of aid trucks lined up outside Semera on Thursday. They are expected to arrive in Mekelle today as part of a convoy of 200, the biggest since the truce was declared 2 months ago.
00:00 - With Somalia threatening war, Ethiopia insists it did not agree to recognise Somaliland in return for a port. But Somaliland's foreign minister told me "nothing is going to happen" without recognition . My report on the "memorandum of misunderstanding".
- The Ethiopia-Somaliland MoU is leading to calls in the UK to lend diplomatic recognition to SomalilandIn light of the Ethiopian deal with Somaliland, yesterday in the Houses of Parliament I called on the UK Government to start the process to recognise Somaliland as a free, independent sovereign nation.
00:00 - Residents of Mariam Shewito, Endabagerima, Gendebta and other villages near Adwa said Eritrean soldiers killed hundreds of civilians following a battle in the area in late October, days before the ceasefire was signed.
- Tigray forces have called on the international community to help them facilitate the release of 4,200 POWs, a major possible step towards peace in northern Ethiopia after 18 months of conflict. theafricareport.com/206225/ethiopi…
- Gold and money traders in Hargeisa's market, Somaliland. “You could not trade like this in Mogadishu," says one. "Here no one will touch it, but there you would get robbed straight away.” thetimes.co.uk/article/camel-…
- Nearly one year after the Pretoria ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of IDPs from western Tigray are still trapped in shabby displacement camps and now starving without aid, with no hopes of returning home soon.
- Despite resuming food aid in December, aid agencies are struggling to distribute at scale and get food to all who need it. "Just 14% of 3.2 million people targeted for food aid by humanitarian agencies in Tigray this month had received it by Jan 21."
- First used in Tigray and now deployed to Amhara and Oromia, drones have become an essential counterinsurgency tool in Ethiopia. The military says they are like any other weapon, but concerns are mounting over the civilian toll. My report:
- War, climate change and the legacy of an aid suspension have combined to push millions of Ethiopians to the brink, as reports of hundreds of starvation deaths begin to emerge.
