Dubai: Like many women before her, 28-year-old Zaitouneh arrived in the UAE in search of a life better than her poverty-stricken upbringing in southern Ethiopia.
Initially she hoped to pay-off the Dh5,000 loan that she took to pay the illegal agent who organised her papers to get her into the UAE to work as a maid in Umm Al Quwain. However, unlike many other women who have been exploited in this manner by illegal agents in their home country, Zaitouneh was also nine-months pregnant when she arrived to the UAE and gave birth to her daughter, Jameela, in her employer’s kitchen, just days after she arrived in the country.
In a villa in Jumeirah, over 20 Ethiopian women who have been living illegally in the UAE are awaiting their departure on Sunday, to face an uncertain future back in their home country.
Little six-month-old Jameela now crawls around the women’s shelter – the only place she has ever known as home. She has no legal status here, but has been given an outpass to leave the country and travel to Ethiopia with her mother.
Speaking through a translator and social worker at the City of Hope Shelter, Zaitouneh – who is illiterate and can only communicate in her local dialect – says she hopes to learn some basic skills back in Addis Ababa so that she can provide for her daughter. She is visibly overwhelmed by the prospect of leaving the relative security of the shelter, and the thought of re-paying the loan she took to travel to the UAE.
While Ethiopians in the UAE are certainly not alone in falling victim to illegal agents, according to members of the community, it is the isolation of some of their compatriots scattered around the country, as well as a language barrier that have made them more vulnerable.
Desperation
Several months ago, out of desperation another young Ethiopian woman told Gulf News that she handed over her entire life-savings and money she borrowed from friends to someone she trusted.
He was from within her own community and promised to help her secure a UAE work visa so that she could continue to live in the city she had called home for five years. But, as soon as she paid the Dh4,000 fee, he disappeared.
Although she now has a valid visa, 26-year-old Hanna from Addis Ababa says she learnt the hard way about the problems that are plaguing her community.
According to Consul Techan Girmay, the Consulate General of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in Dubai is working at full-capacity to try to bridge the communication gap and assist the hundreds of people seeking their help every day. It is estimated that the Ethiopian population in the UAE now hovers at around 40,000.
On any given day, the nondescript office building in Bur Dubai that houses the Ethiopian Consulate teems with people, mostly young women, waiting in the long queues for their turn to seek advice and assistance from one of only a handful of consular staff.
The office has even resorted to employing volunteers from within the community and is also relying on other organisations such as City of Hope to step-in to help the most sensitive cases.
“Our nationals really are suffering from a lot of problems … we have many instances of women being raped and abused within the community,” said Girmay. “We have had cases where women have come to us because they are confused because they do not know what the amnesty is about and how it will affect them.”
Amnesty
Over the past three months since the beginning of the amnesty for people staying illegally in the country, the consulate says it has been overwhelmed by the influx of people through its doors. Since the amnesty, at least 7,500 Ethiopians have taken advantage of the reprieve and left the country, according to Girmay.
The information in Amharic – an ancient Semitic language spoken almost exclusively in Ethiopia – is posted around the consulate and distributed throughout the community.
“But, [at the end of the day] our community has to work together to try to help those most vulnerable,” said Girmay.
(AP) ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — As Ethiopia prepares to celebrate the third millennium, the most popular joke in the capital goes like this: How do you say “millennium” in Amharic?
The pun of an answer — “menem yellem” (ምንም የለም), which means “there is nothing” — sums up how many people here feel about the festivities to mark the third millennium, which begins after midnight Tuesday according to Ethiopia’s Coptic calendar.
With the schedule of events changing and security concerns in the capital, many Ethiopians say the celebrations — which include a concert with tickets that cost what an average Ethiopian earns in two months at nearly $170 — are beyond their reach.
The Black Eyed Peas, an American hip-hop act, will perform Tuesday night at a new, $20 million temporary exhibition hall built by Ethiopia’s richest man, and the Hilton hotel will host a $100-and-up party.
“The millennium, it’s nothing for me,” said Mulugeta Demssie, 23, a taxi driver, who said he thought the concert should be free, or at least cheaper.
“Because I don’t have money, I can’t enjoy it.”
Ethiopia follows a calendar set up by Roman emperor Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. that is about seven years behind the more common Gregorian calendar. About half Ethiopia’s population is Orthodox Christian.
Organizers at the Millennium Secretariat point out that some celebrations will be free, notably several cultural events at a stadium in Addis Ababa and at a field just northeast of the city center. The concert will be broadcast live on television and on a big screen.
As to the high-priced tickets for the main millennium event?
“We have costs to cover. Those who are not able to pay … will be able to watch it from the comfort of their home or in a festive environment,” Mulugeta said.
Many Ethiopians say they are planning to celebrate at home with their families.
Tigist Assefa, 29, a saleswoman, said she would don traditional dress and prepare a traditional meal for her affordable fete at home.
“The cost of living is very annoying these days,” she said.
(AP – ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia Woyanne briefly detained what it said were four U.S. soldiers trying to contact a rebel group that has been fighting for greater autonomy for eastern Ethiopia, Ethiopian Woyanne officials said Friday.
Bereket Simon, a senior [propaganda] adviser to Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi, declined to say when the soldiers were detained or give any further details. Asked about the U.S. soldiers, he told the AP: “Four soldiers, or some soldiers, were detained. They were trying to contact the ONLF (the Ogaden National Liberation Front). That was not permitted.”
An official at the U.S. Embassy couldn’t immediately comment on the issue.
In an interview published in this week’s edition of Time magazine, Meles said Ethiopia had no proof the U.S. soldiers made contact with the rebels but they could have been “moving in that direction.”
“As far as we know, these personalities did not have official sanction to do that what they were doing. They were violating their own code of conduct,” the premier told Time in an interview conducted last month.
An official familiar with the case said the soldiers were detained in May in the eastern region of Somali State, as the Ogaden is known. The official said they were immediately released and their Ethiopian-American interpreter released in August.
At the time, the U.S. soldiers’ detention wasn’t made public.
Mogadishu – Somali insurgents attacked the Woyanne military base in the national stadium today. The dwellers around the national stadium have informed Shabelle that the fighting went on for more than 10 minutes and the rattles of both heavy and light machineguns followed by several explosions.
At another location, Mahmud Harbi Street, which is not very far from Ali Kamiin and is the base of a platoon of the Woyanne troops, exchange of gun fire could be heard.
Kinijit delegation headed by Secretary General Muluneh Eyoel and involving executive committee members Ato Abayneh Berhanu, Ato Kifle Tigneh, Ato Ashcalew Ketema, and Dr Yacob Hailemariam will arrive at London’s Heathrow Airport on Sunday, Sept. 9, at 3:30 PM.
Kinijit’s UK Chapter members invite all Ethiopians in the London area to join them in welcoming these national heroes and elected representatives of the people of Ethiopia at the airport.
In 2004, memorial ceremonies for the victims of the Rwandan genocide caused the world to begin to awaken to the slaughter of innocent civilians in Darfur. “Never again,” became the rallying cry for a movement to save Darfur.
Tragically, today, even as the world community unites to end the killing in Darfur, policymakers are ignoring a new Darfur, a spreading conflict in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia that could become the spark that enflames all of Ethiopia.
The Alliance for Democracy and Freedom (AFD), therefore, calls on the international community to act now to halt human rights abuses in the Ogaden –and before it is too late to prevent the next Darfur.
In recent weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRS), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Human Rights Watch and the New York Times have all reported that Ethiopian government soldiers have forced thousands of civilians in the Ogaden to abandon their homes. Whole villages and food stocks have been torched by government soldiers. Civilians refusing to leave their homes and villages have been tortured, raped and killed. In direct violation of international humanitarian law, the Ethiopian government has used food as a weapon in its military campaign against the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). The government has blocked humanitarian agencies from providing food, medicine and other assistance to civilians in the region. And it has arrested and expelled the few journalists who have tried to report on the human toll of the Ethiopian government’s desperate efforts to crush democratic opposition in the region.
The AFD urges the people of Ethiopia to stop this madness. It is urgent that we rise in solidarity to support our suffering brothers and sisters in the Ogaden. We must unite in declaring that injustice against any person or group in any part of the country is an injustice committed against all of us.
RAISE YOUR VOICES!
DEMAND THAT THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY PRESSURE THE ETHIOPIAN GOVERNMENT TO STOP THE ATROCITY AND
TO ALLOW HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATIONS AND JOURNALISTS IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO THE OGADEN.
AFD believes that the military action, no matter how brutal, cannot quash the people’s desire for democracy and freedom. The problem in the Ogaden is a political problem — and it will only be solved by a comprehensive political solution that addresses not just the crisis in the Ogaden, but also the wider political problems in the country. It is for this reason that AFD is calling for an all-inclusive process of dialogue.
The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy shall prevail!
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Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (AFD)
