Ethiopians 'in transit'

and an inevitable human rights issue

Aug 05, 2024

Hi there,

If you have time tomorrow, there’s a panel organized by Amnesty International on the conflict in Ethiopia’s Amhara region. It is now a year since fighting started between the region’s informal militia, known as Fano, and the federal government, and the panel will, ‘cover events since the conflict began, current conditions, and ongoing gross human rights violations.’

I’ve also been chronicling updates on the conflict and you can find all XXV editions, here. The link to register for the panel discussion, entitled ‘Ethiopia: Pervasive impunity and victims' fight for justice and accountability’ here.

I go a bit deeper into a migration story this week, looking at a report on effectivenes of support given to returnees, but I’ve kept the entire reading time, as always, capped at 10 minutes.

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.

Migration: rescued from traffickers

Ninety Ethiopian migrants, ‘believed to have been illegally trafficked’, have been rescued by police in South Africa. They were kept in a house, ‘held against their will at a property in Johannesburg’, according to a story in The Washington Post. The story says that there are concerns, ‘over the trafficking of Ethiopian migrants through several southern African countries in an attempt to ultimately reach South Africa.’

The report I looked into for this week looks at what happens after migrants come back home; more precisely entitled, ‘Can Stranded Migrants from Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan Rebuild Their Lives upon Return?’

Published by the Migration Policy Institute, the report says that, migration is getting more dangerous because of the, ‘increasing land and sea controls and conflicts’ on routes starting from these East African countries.

Many of those who start the journey get stuck in a ‘transit country’: Libya, Djibouti, or Tanzania. There they face harsh conditions, subjected to what multiple organizations have described as ‘crimes against humanity.’

While stuck in these transit countries, migrants often need the help of a government or an international organization to leave. When they do return home, not only are they ‘penniless’, because they were unable to work or earn money (forced labor), but face debts at home, because of the costs they incurred to ‘finance the migration’. The paper says that economic and psychosocial support at home can help rebuild their lives.

This was the result of an EU-funded and UN-implemented program carried out between 2017 and 2023. It included 26 African countries, including these countries in the Horn. The program focused on offering migrants protection, facilitating their return home, and then supporting them financially once they’re home. This was, ‘one of the largest return and reintegration initiatives’ says the report, with a 603 million Euro budget which supported ‘the return of more than 134,000 individuals and reintegration of 124,000’.

For Ethiopian migrants, the most commonly used route is the Eastern one; through Somalia, Djibouti, Yemen, and finally to Saudi Arabia. Long-time readers will remember an edition of this newsletter entitled, ‘The Eastern Route: The Migration Route from Hell’; after reading the paper I based that particular update on, that title was my sole conclusion.

There are two other common routes; to South Africa called the Southern Route (which includes today’s story), and finally the Northern Route to Europe by way of Libya. However, migration routes, like everything else, have a hierarchy.

So, what kind of support was given to them once back home? These include, ‘temporary housing, transportation, pocket money, and near-term medical and psychosocial aid, as well as training sessions for starting and growing a business.’

What was the amount of micro business grants given to each migrant? $1,100-$2,650.

The reports say, after surveying returnees, those who got financial support were significantly better off than those who hadn’t received any. Yet, few returnees have ‘sought to remigrate’.

The initiative ended in 2023, as the EU shifted focus toward the Northern Route to Europe. Conflict in Ethiopia has also complicated the return of migrants to their hometowns, it adds.

The paper also says this in terms of what the EU has done to curb migration from these ‘transit countries’, specifically Libya:

Following the European refugee and migration crisis of 2015 and 2016, EU policies and a migration control agreement between Italy and Libya have provided funding to Libyan authorities to prevent irregular migration to Europe.

Back in 2020, in a Review of the EU’s Trust Fund for Africa, Oxfam’s EU migration policy advisor had said that, “European governments seem determined to prevent migration at any cost,” and that “Libya remains the most notorious example of short-sighted EU cooperation with and funding for authorities which fuel human trafficking and the arbitrary detention of refugees in horrific and dangerous conditions.”

In June this year, I included an investigation by Lighthouse Reports, entitled, ‘Desert Dumps’, that showed that the EU was directly involved, ‘in clandestine operations in North African countries to dump tens of thousands of Black people in the desert or remote areas each year to prevent them from coming to the EU’.

The policy advisor had said this at the time: As EU governments choose to rely on foreign administrations to improve control over borders and returns, they lose the space and legitimacy to work with them on improving respect for human rights.’

The full report, entitled ‘Can Stranded Migrants from Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan Rebuild Their Lives upon Return?’ here.

The story on the rescued Ethiopian migrants, on The Washington Post, here.

Finance: bracing for impact

Last week Monday, the Ethiopian government liberalized the foreign exchange market. A week later, the Birr ‘is down 40% against the dollar’, and stands at over 100 Birr for 1 US dollar.

Reporters from Ethiopia Insider went around checking for prices of goods in Addis Abeba’s biggest open market, Merkato early last week and found that certain commodities, like cooking oil and powdered milk, had already shown price increases. Some businesses were not selling their products and instead were waiting for foreign currency exchange prices to settle down.

In response to hoarders and many others who had gone the route of increasing prices exorbitantly, the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration, was busy shutting down businesses last week, according to a story by Addis Standard.

Part of the government’s decision to cushion this blow to the currency devaluation has been importing cooking oil and increasing government employee salaries.

Here’s an excerpt on that from a story on Bloomberg:

It plans 550 billion birr ($5.9 billion) in additional spending, of which 40% will go into food, fuel and fertilizer subsidies, as well as increasing salaries for government workers, according to Eyob Tekalign Tolina, state minister in the finance ministry.

The Ethiopian government has since secured a deal of 3.4 billion USD in funding from the IMF and a pledge of 16.6 billion USD from the World Bank after liberalizing the market, one of many preconditions to access these funds, according to the same story.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is urging banks in Ethiopia to close the gap between the official rates offered and the parallel market.

The full story on Addis Standard, here, and on Bloomberg, here.

Weather: the mudslides in Southern Ethiopia (III)

Before the news of Ethiopia’s foreign currency market liberalization consumed the news cycle, the country was going through three days of national mourning following a catastrophic mudslide that resulted in the death of more than 250 people. This happened in the South Ethiopia region, in an area known as Gofa.

A week later, another mudslide was reported in another region, South West Ethiopia, which took the lives of three people.

But the mudslides are now being reported again in the country’s South Ethiopia region, in another area known as Tepa.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Rescuing efforts are underway to evacuate people within the disaster zone. The district’s Government Communication Affairs Office reported that the bodies of 11 people have been found so far while the death toll is likely to rise.

The Ethiopian Meteorological Institute is warning of the potential for mudslides in many other parts of the country.

The full story on state broadcaster, Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, in English, here.

Tigray: who’s responsible for post-conflict lawlessness?

A court in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has sentenced eight people to lengthy prison terms for kidnapping, and aggravated robbery according to a story on Addis Standard. This is part of the region’s response to the growing security concerns in the city.

Last month, I wrote an update on a story on armed groups in the region running illicit gold mining operations.

The region’s interim administrator, and deputy leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), has accused his party of corruption and mismanagement.

Here’s an excerpt of what he said:

Getachew openly admitted a breakdown in governance in the region due to lack of cooperation between the interim administration, security forces, and the judiciary, with “internal divisions within the TPLF leadership further exacerbating the crisis.

The full story on Addis Standard, here.

Refugees: relocation for Sudanese

Since the start of the war in Sudan, tens of thousands of Sudanese have come to Ethiopia seeking refuge. Some of them live in camps in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, which borders Sudan.

Ethiopia’s Amhara region is in the middle of another conflict, and it has left refugees vulnerable to attacks, and kidnappings. Earlier in May, thousands of refugees walked out of their camps in protest, seeking other safer locations.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission says it welcomes the latest decision to move refugees to safer parts of the region. The Commission says that refugees often face, ‘inadequate humanitarian assistance, including food, health care, education, shelter, livelihood, and other essential services’.

The Commission called on the ‘Ethiopian government to strengthen the security in and around refugee camps.’

Ethiopia hosts over one million refugees and is the second-largest refugee-hosting country in Africa.

The full press release, from the Commission, in English, here.

That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!

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