one “ruthless criminal enterprise” down
and the story of Yaekob Yatane
Hi there,
I hope your weekend was fun.
I’m heading to Nairobi this week, where I’ll be attending a workshop on gender responsive reporting. I’m hoping it will be an insightful one. If you’re in town, let me know, and we can grab coffee while I’m there!
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 human rights stories in Ethiopia.
Now, to the news.
Trafficking: a kingpin of the eastern corridor
A multi-million-dollar human trafficking syndicate has been busted.
The network, which has, “lured more than 40,000 migrants with false promises of work”, was taken down by Ethiopian federal police last week.
Here’s an excerpt from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP):
Officers arrested 17 key operatives, including the syndicate’s alleged kingpin, Mohamed Tahir Aden, known by the moniker “Werdi.”
The sweeping crackdown shuttered one of the most ruthless criminal enterprises operating along the Horn of Africa’s notorious eastern migration corridor.
You can find a refresher on the easter migration corridor, here.
The traffickers were holding Ethiopian migrants hostage and asking for “steep” ransom from their families, reportedly making over 6.2 million dollars.
The full report on OCCRP, here.
Press freedom: killed while in exile
Earlier in April, an Ethiopian journalist named Yaekob Yatane was murdered in Nairobi, Kenya.
Yaekob, from Ethiopia’s Konso community, “had worked for many years as an editor and reporter for English-language programming at Ethiopian Television,” according to a post by Meseret Media.
Here’s more information on his passing from the post:
After going into exile in Kenya, Yaekob became known for exposing governance problems and human rights violations in his native Konso area. Until his death, he had continued doing this through various media platforms and social media.
A person who knew the deceased told Meseret Media that Yaekob had been receiving threats a few months before his death.
Here’s a LinkedIn post worth looking at on this, and here’s a statement on his murder from the International Press Institute.
Kenya has long been a refuge for journalists who have struggled to continue their work in Ethiopia. Yet, this assumption is being put to the test.
In June last year, The Continent ran a piece on “cross-border state repression” taking place in Eastern Africa.
Here’s an excerpt from that:
Politically vocal East Africans have been tracked, kidnapped, detained, and brutalised away from home, while visiting or living in other countries in the bloc. This has been met with mutual silence from governments in the region.
The edition of The Continent where this story was published, here.
Food security: not a promising outlook
Nearly 80 million Ethiopians have faced some kind of food insecurity over the years from 2023 to 2025.
That’s 60.1 percent of the country’s population, according to a new report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Here’s an excerpt from a report on Addis Standard:
The report cautions, however, that “the estimates for Ethiopia exclude the Tigray region,” where food insecurity remains severe, driven by ongoing displacement, stalled peace implementation, and critical aid shortages.
This is already concerning, but more so when you factor in that this is an increase from the recorded number during 2014 to 2016, which was 58.4 million people.
This is attributed to a combination of issues: conflict, drought, inflation and interruptions in social protection programs.
The full story, on Addis Standard, here, and the link to the full report, entitled The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 – Understanding and addressing the high cost of a healthy diet, here.
Migration: more Ethiopians detained in Saudi
I’ve been sharing updates over the past couple of months on the Ethiopians on death row in Saudi Arabia on drug-related charges.
But even as the Ethiopian government says negotiations are underway (and that there are 1,971 nationals who have been granted amnesty), more people have just been detained.
Here’s an excerpt from a story on the Saudi Gazette:
Saudi Border Guard arrested 14 Ethiopian and Yemeni nationals in the Asir Region for attempting to smuggle 240 kilograms of narcotic khat plant.
The issue starts at home, with many Ethiopians migrating “for economic reasons” as well as fleeing “serious human rights abuses by their government, including during the recent, brutal armed conflict in northern Ethiopia.”
The full story on the Saudi Gazette, here.
Tourism: against all odds
More tourists are making their way to Ethiopia, even despite all the “security concerns”, says a new report on Le Monde.
Here’s an excerpt:
…nearly 1,200,000 tourists chose Ethiopia between July 2025 and April 2026, according to the Ethiopian Ministry of Tourism.
The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) reported that this marked a 15% increase over the previous period – the highest growth in Africa.
The full story, which includes experiences of Europeans and Ethiopian diaspora exploring some of the country’s most iconic tourist destinations, here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll catch you next Monday.
In the meantime, if you know someone who might be interested in this, share and let them know!
One bit of good news and lots of bad. 😭😭😭😨
Food insecurity is only going to get worse in the coming years I fear 😭