By Alison Bevege | Herald Sun

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — RELATIVES of a Melbourne man thrown into an Ethiopian jail as he worked to build a hospital fear he has been beaten and tortured.

West Heidelberg resident Sadiq Ahmed was arrested on May 21 with a British man and seven local community leaders in the eastern Ethiopian town of Raaso.

Distraught relatives told Herald Sun they believed the men had been beaten and possibly tortured after being grabbed by authorities in the regional government of Ethiopia’s Somali district.

“My brother has two broken ribs, that’s what we’re told. The British guy was hit around the head badly and is bleeding,” said Sadiq’s brother, Abdalla Ahmed.

Abdalla narrowly escaped arrest himself and went into hiding, only emerging six days later to make his escape home to Australia.

Abdalla, 53, and his brother Sadiq, 46, a food safety inspector, had been working in the Somali region of Ethiopia for the past two years to build a hospital after their family – once refugees from the area – had raised more than $100,000 for the project to help the impoverished community.

Ethiopia is broken into ethnic regions, with Raaso governed by the Somali regional government.

Mr Ahmed said Executive Committee president Daud Mohamed Ali was angry with Raaso community leaders campaigning to draw attention to the plight of poor people, many living in tents with no running water.

“He personally came to Raaso to threaten us,” he said.

Abdalla, Sadiq, and a group of other community leaders left Raaso to go to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Abbaba 10 days ago.

There was not enough room on the bus for all of them, Abdalla Ahmed said, so he caught a different bus.

“We kept communicating by mobile … They were on the bus laughing until they reached a road block. The Somali Regional Government army took them and was beating anyone who asked them what was going on,” he said.

Nine people including Sadiq and British citizen Ibrahim Gaasim were arrested, taken to the provincial capital Jijiga and thrown into prison, Mr Ahmed said.

Community members living in Jijiga told the former Melbourne taxi driver that the militia were looking for him, too.

“I didn’t have any chance to go back to my house for my clothes or my photographs – I had to go on the run,” he said.

Mr Ahmed spent a week hiding in Addis Ababa.

“I stayed in hotels and inside a room in an unknown house,” he said.

“My friend was the only one who knew where I was and he brought me food.

“It was hell not knowing what would happen to me. I could not use my phone in case they tagged me.”

Mr Ahmed said his friend organised for him to meet an Australian consular official who was flown from Pretoria, South Africa, to work on the case.

“She organised for me to fly to Australia,” he said.

“I’m relieved to be home but I’m very worried about my brother … I am still in shock and worried about him.”

Mr Ahmed said community sources had told him the detainees appeared as though they had been beaten when they appeared in a Jijiga court late last week.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said the Ethiopian Ministry for Foreign Affairs had confirmed that an Australian man had been detained in Ethiopia.

“The man has not yet been charged and it is inappropriate to speculate about what, if any, charges the man may face.”

The department did not say whether a representative had seen the Australian detainee or whether he was in need of medical attention, but said they were continuing to provide assistance to the man and his family.

The spokesman stressed the Australian government was unable to control or intervene in the judicial processes of foreign countries including Ethiopia.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s travel advice for Ethiopia advises Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Ethiopia.

Mr Ahmed’s sister Malyun Ahmed said the attack had happened two weeks after the Ethiopian Government had passed a vote to recognise Raaso, which had angered Ethopia’s Somali regional government.

But she said the arrests could also be based on tribal rivalries.

Violence has flared in the past between the majority Ogaden tribe and the minority Sheekhaal to which the Ahmeds belong, causing the Sheekhaal community to move to Raaso, Malyun said.

“The Sheekhaal community fled the Ogaden region six years ago after killings and raids,” she said. “Since then Ogaden militia have waged several wars: my cousin who was only 16 years old was shot more than 10 times in 2006.”