Ethiopia plagued by ‘epidemic’ of kidnappings

“They were all very young and threatened us with assault rifles. I was terrified,” recalled the 21-year-old biomedical engineering student.

The kidnappers blindfolded Aynalem and the other passengers. After several hours on the road, they forced her to call her family to demand a ransom.

They wanted 500,000 birr (about $4,400), a huge sum in a country where more than a third of the population lives below the poverty line.

Then began a grueling, days-long wait in the woods.

“They made us sleep on the grass, we only had dirty water and a loaf of bread,” Aynalem said.

“I’ve been through some horrible things,” she continued, breaking down in sobs. “I’ve been sexually abused.”

After several days, Aynalem’s family managed to raise the money “by going into debt and borrowing money from different people,” her mother said, and she was released.

Aynalem’s name has been changed for security reasons, as have those of other victims and relatives who spoke to AFP.

Not everyone on the bus survived the ordeal.

“While I was being held, several people died because their families could not pay the ransom. I could hear them begging for our kidnappers before they died,” she said.

‘Security vacuum’

Many regions of Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country with about 120 million people, are plagued by kidnappings.

Observers say the threat has increased since the end of a brutal two-year war between the government and rebels in the northern region of Tigray, which has left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

That conflict largely ended with a peace deal in November 2022, but armed insurgencies have worsened in two other regions, Oromia and Amhara.

Armed groups are taking advantage of the security vacuum in areas outside government control, said Mebrihi Brhane of the NGO Human Rights First Ethiopia.

“The capital is the only safe place in the country,” Mebrihi told AFP, saying kidnappings had become an “epidemic”.

“It’s a way for unemployed youth to earn money,” he said.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, a state-linked but independent body, warned in a report this month of an “increase and worsening” of kidnappings by both organized criminal gangs and “members of the government security forces.”

Authorities rarely comment on such incidents and the government spokesman did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

– ‘Too poor to pay’ –

The EHRC accuses the Oromo Liberation Army, which has been fighting federal forces in Oromia since 2018, of carrying out numerous kidnappings, including the arrest of more than 160 students traveling through the region in July.

One man told AFP the kidnappers demanded 700,000 birr (about $6,100) in exchange for his sister’s release.

“But we are too poor to pay,” he said.

“I have not received any proof that my sister is alive. It has made my family and me anxious and desperate.”

In another kidnapping in March in Adwa in the Tigray region, a family was asked for three million birr (about $26,000) for the release of 16-year-old Mahlet Teklay.

Her sister Millen told AFP the kidnappers would not let her talk on the phone.

Because they had no proof of life and insufficient funds, the family did not pay.

Three months later, after police located Mahlet’s phone, they arrested three suspects.

“They led the police to the spot where they killed and buried my sister,” Millen said, her voice trembling.

“They lost heart and strangled her with her own shoelaces.”

The family wants the murder case to be held in the Tigray capital, Mekele, rather than Adwa, fearing the suspects have friends in official positions there.

According to Mebrihi, the human rights activist, there is a lot of impunity.

“As long as the government does not control certain regions, criminals will continue to go unpunished,” he said.

© 2024 AFP