Addis Ababa, 5 September 2017 – Speaking at the conclusion of a four-day visit to Ethiopia, including to the drought-stricken Somali region, the heads of the United Nations food agencies made a joint call for greater investment in long-term activities that strengthen people’s resilience to drought and the impacts of climate shocks.
Slums may remain permanent fixture of Addis Abeba
Samuel Bogale
Addis Abeba, September 04/2017 – On left side in the middle of the long stretch from Arat Kilo Square (otherwise known as ‘Victory Square’) down to Mesqel Square, lays the age-old Menilik II Palace (The residence of the prime minister) and one of the most protected and secured places in the country. On the other side of the same road, a large plot of land fenced with green and yellow corrugated iron lays idle. Covered by the fences is an area famously known as Fit Ber (Front Gate), where thousands of the city’s poor lived for as long as 50 years. It is where Ephrem Ayele, (who requested his name to be changed for fear of “repercussions” from his Kebele administrators), lives with his wife and two of his kids in a combined plastic and corrugated iron makeshift ‘house’.
Addis Abeba, September 01/2017 – Intense fighting between the Ethiopian Somali and the Oromo ethnic groups in the eastern Ethiopia has left “more than 30 people”, including “more than a dozen army members”, dead and several others injured, Addis Standard learned.
According to three residents of Mieso town, west Hararghe zone, who contacted Addis Standard late this evening, today’s fighting in and around the town was between several members of local residents and heavily armed members of the “Liyu Police”. “We couldn’t take the killings our men, the raping of our girls and the lootings of our cattle by bandits openly supported by the Liyu Police,” wrote Abdulatif Kererro, a resident of the town in his message. A similar attack has left seven civilians dead last week in Chinakson in east Hararghe and its environs.
