‘Frightening’ kidnappings increase in Ethiopia amid political, economic turmoil

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Fighters from the rebel group Oromo Liberation Army dragged a woman named Alemetu from her home in Ethiopia’s Oromia region as she tried to sleep.

She was taken to an abandoned school where 40 OLA fighters lived and held hostage for four weeks. During her captivity, Alemetu was beaten with a whip and hung upside down from a tree for hours — while she was pregnant.

Alemetu was only released after her family paid a ransom of 110,000 birr (just over $1,900), a huge sum in rural Ethiopia. The OLA, which burned down her house after her release, claims to fight for the self-determination of the Oromo ethnic group, but is classified as a terrorist group by the government.

At the time, Alemetu’s family also tried to pay a ransom of 90,000 birr (nearly $1,555) to free her uncle, a local farmer, from kidnappers. The family is now destitute.

“It is very rare to find a family in our area that has not been affected by kidnappings,” Alemetu told The Guardian. “The government has no control.”

Alemetu says she believes she was kidnapped because her husband accepted a job with a local government office.

“Even if you just pay taxes, the fighters will attack you,” she said.

Anyone can be a target

Stories like Alemetu’s are becoming increasingly common in Ethiopia. According to The Week magazine, more than 100 people, mostly students, were being held for ransom by kidnappers in mid-July.

Most kidnappings occur in Oromia, although kidnappers are also active in the war-torn regions of Tigray and Amhara. Cross-border kidnappings have also been reported by groups not affiliated with the OLA in various parts of the country.

In March, kidnappers captured a 16-year-old schoolgirl in Tigray and demanded a ransom of 3 million birr (more than $51,800) from her parents. The kidnapping was reported to police, but the girl’s dead body was discovered in June, sparking national outrage.

Kidnappings were rare outside OLA strongholds in western Oromia until recently. Attacks have mostly targeted police officers, government officials and their relatives, and the goals have generally been political — such as fomenting instability or establishing a presence in a specific area — rather than financial.

As The Guardian reported, kidnapping for ransom is now commonplace. And kidnappings are happening near Addis Ababa, the national capital, as the OLA insurgency spreads to new areas. Now anyone could be a target.

According to independent researcher Jonah Wedekind, bandits who are only interested in financial gain can also kidnap people for ransom.

“Some armed actors see the OLA as someone who is efficiently generating capital through these attacks and perhaps copying them,” Wedekind told the Guardian. “And this is part of the broader problem: the conflict is a reflection of the collapse of the economy and people are out of work, so this is what they are turning to.”

Allegations have emerged that financial institutions are revealing people’s account balances to kidnappers before or during abductions, according to multiple law enforcement sources who spoke anonymously to the ENACT Organized Crime Project.

An anonymous journalist told ENACT that the money collected as ransom ended up back in financial institutions in Ethiopia and neighboring Kenya and Sudan, where the money was processed as legitimate transactions.

This money is suspected of fuelling conflict and facilitating transnational organised crime, such as arms trafficking and financial crimes.

‘All we do is cry and pray’

On July 3, gunmen attacked three buses and kidnapped dozens of students from Ethiopia’s Debark University traveling to Addis Ababa. The buses were stopped near Garba Guracha, a small town in Oromia.

“There were gunshots and I heard repeated orders to run,” an animal science student who used the name Mehret told the BBC. “I didn’t even know what we were doing.”

Mehret was one of the few who managed to escape.

“They told everyone to get off the bus,” said a law student who used the name Petros. “They started beating everyone (with sticks) and forced us to run to the nearby forest. It was terrifying.”

Some relatives of the victims accused authorities of not paying enough attention to the incident.

“It is confusing why the authorities are neglecting the issue when our children have been taken,” a man using Dalke’s name and whose daughter was among the victims, told the BBC.

Another man said he just wants his loved ones back.

“We have no money to offer (the kidnappers). I sacrificed a lot to send my children to school,” he said. “Now all we do is cry and pray.”

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