another labor rights strike
and visa costs for refugees
Hi there,
The Africa Media Festival (AMF) will be on the 26th and 27th of February and I’ll be attending! I will share my thoughts on the festival and themes for this year so keep an eye out for next week’s edition for that.
Last year, I was invited to speak at the AMF about Sifter; why I started this newsletter, and what it taught me about the ‘power of community’. You can watch my presentation here. If you’re also attending, reply to this email and let me know, we can chat between sessions!
To new subscribers, welcome!
My name is Maya Misikir, and I’m a freelance reporter based in Addis Abeba. I write Sifter, this newsletter where I send out the week’s top 5 stories on human rights and news in Ethiopia.
Now, to the news.
Labor rights: another case of unpaid salaries
Health workers at Ayder Hospital in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region have been on strike since last week Thursday. Employees at the hospital are protesting, ‘unpaid salaries, disrupted benefits, lack of overtime payments, and the absence of transportation services’ according to a story on Addis Standard.
Services at the hospital have been suspended including emergency care.
Here’s an excerpt:
Berhane Gebremeskel, Public Relations Head at Ayder Referral Hospital, told Addis Standard that hospital services, including emergency care, “have been disrupted due to the strike.”
He attributed the crisis to “rising fuel prices and employees’ concerns over low wages,” which he said “have not kept pace with increasing transportation costs.”
Berhane added that workers are demanding “reliable transportation to ensure timely arrival at the hospital” and the payment of “17 months of unpaid salaries.”
In November, I wrote an update about how the Tigray Teachers Association was taking the region’s interim administration to court over 12 months of unpaid salaries.
The full story on Addis Standard, here.
Refugees: visa costs on top of everything else
Tens of thousands of Sudanese have arrived in Ethiopia seeking refuge here since the start of the conflict in Sudan in April 2023. I have written updates on the conditions of the refugee camps in the past. In particular, how the conflict in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, which borders Sudan, had put them in harm’s way, in the middle of yet another fight.
Sudanese seeking refugee status in Ethiopia are required to, ‘live in designated camps’, and are exempt from visa fees. Those who chose to live in urban areas because of security considerations were also exempt from visa fees.
The latter has now changed, according to a story by The New Humanitarian.
Here's an excerpt:
‘…these exemptions were halted last October, forcing thousands of refugees living outside the camps to start paying $100 every month to renew their visas, and an additional $10 per day in fines if they miss the payment.’
Sudanese refugees are expected to prove they ‘have a local sponsor or prove their ability to support themselves’ to get a permit to live outside the camps. But since these are hard to obtain, many don’t have it and are, ‘required to constantly renew their visas’.
There are regular arrests of Sudanese refugees who have been unable to pay these fees, adds the story.
The full story, on The New Humanitarian, here.
Security: we don’t know her (XXXVIII)
This is the 38-part update on the security in Ethiopia’s Amhara region (where there is fighting between the federal government and the region’s informal militia, Fano). All previous parts can be found, in chronological order, here.
Last week, the Amhara Region Judges Association announced that all judges in detention have been released, according to a story on Ethiopia Insider.
Judges in the region have been facing imprisonment related to the rulings they have issued in courts, especially since the state of emergency was enacted in the region in August 2023. Over the last month, 36 judges have been released according to the Association.
A week before that, in the region’s North Gojam Zone, thirteen teachers were abducted by Fano fighters, who requested ransom for their release. The teachers had gone back to teach at the schools, despite an order by the Fano to close schools, and instead following a government mandate to return to work.
The full story, on Ethiopia Insider, in Amharic, here.
South Ethiopia: attacks in a border town
An attack on a pastoralist community in a border town between Kenya and Ethiopia has resulted in loss of life and property. The attackers killed 13 people in South Ethiopia Region, and stole boats, fishing nets, and about 500,000 fish, according to a story Addis Standard.
A representative from the Ethiopian district where this happened blames ‘armed militants from Kenya’ for the attack on the pastoralist community.
Here’s an excerpt of what he said:
‘…previous conflicts between pastoralists were resolved through elder mediation. “But now that government bodies from the Kenyan side are getting involved, the situation is becoming complicated…”
Kenyan media outlets, on the other hand, are reporting that 20 people have been killed after armed assailants from the Ethiopian side ambushed fishermen on Lake Turkana.
The full story on Addis Standard here, and on the Kenyan outlet, The Star, here.
Funding: the continued fallouts
The freeze orders on US aid assistance have had serious consequences in Ethiopia. Over the past two weeks, I wrote updates on how this has and will continue to impact the civic space, and health services.
USAID is the largest bilateral donor of humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia, and ‘the single biggest donor of food’ in the country. While some life-saving programs have received waivers to continue despite the freeze, including food, this has disrupted deliveries, according to the latest story on The Guardian.
Here’s an excerpt from the story:
…USAid’s payments system is offline and, as things stand, the agency will not be able to buy more food once its existing supplies in Ethiopia are finished.
This is already having an impact. Currently, 34,880 metric tonnes of sorghum, pulses and vegetable oil – enough to feed 2.1 million people for a month – are trapped in Djibouti’s port, at risk of spoiling before it reaches those in need because there is no money to pay contractors to bring it into Ethiopia.
The freeze has also impacted health services in the country – I wrote highlights about the HIV response in particular, where the US provides more than half of the funding for the country’s response.
The story covers the impact of this freeze on malaria response, polio vaccination programs, and refugees (‘the US provided $240m to help Ethiopia host refugees in 2022 and 2023’).
The full story on The Guardian, here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, feel free to share this with anyone you think can benefit from keeping up with what’s going on in Ethiopia.
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