An Ethiopian journalist's journey to find life in South Korea

In 2010, Surafel Assefa Hailesilassie, a young TV producer in Ethiopia, witnessed election observers rigging ballots in favor of the ruling party during a parliamentary vote in the nation’s capital Addis Ababa. 

“The cameraman who was with me filmed the scenes and I interviewed six people exposing the election fraud,” Hailesilassie, now living in South Korea as a refugee, told The Korea Herald.  

Just two years into his career, Hailesilassie was a fierce journalist, believing in his role as “the eyes and the ears of the society for the public.” 

“As I insisted it must be aired, a deputy mayor of Addis Ababa pointed a gun at my head. He said he would kill me if I don’t keep quiet. He took away my video recording,” he said. 

Since then, Hailesilassie’s professional conscience was continuously suppressed, compromised and even muted as the political situation in press freedom in his home country became worse. 

“I was scared. I received many tip-offs on corruption involving ranking officials, but I had to stay away from them,” he recalled. 

Then in August 2011, covering the World Championships in Athletics in Daegu he decided to flee from the political oppression back home. He applied for asylum here. 

Surafel Assefa Hailesilassie (Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald)

But life in South Korea was far from easy.  

“I didn’t know anybody. I had no shelter, no money. I was hungry and lived on water and sugar to survive while the refugee application was underway,” he recalled. “I worked part-time illegally mostly at factories in Seoul and Ansan.”

At the time, the South Korean government provided no livelihood support to asylum seekers. 

The country introduced the Refugee Act only in 2015, which stipulates provision of a minimum level of humanitarian protection for asylum seekers and refugees. Among other things, it offers asylum seekers legitimate work permits.  

Discrimination was just something he had to live with every day. 

“My bosses and co-workers called me a ‘son of bitch’ many times. I asked them to call my name, but I was refused,” he said. “I had to put up with it because I could not afford to be in trouble.”

The refugee screening process was also not without problems. What he wanted to say was lost in translation, he said. 

“The immigration officer in charge of my case was hostile to me. He treated me like a criminal, suspecting my former career and credentials.” 

His first application was rejected by the Justice Ministry. He appealed, and was finally grated refugee status on Dec. 26 in 2013. 

If the appeal process was unsuccessful, he might have had to fight for refugee status through court proceedings, which usually take up to three years.  

Surafel Hailesilassie (left), his sister Mekdes Hailesilassie and brother Benyam Hailesilassie (Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald)

While expressing gratitude for the recognition, Hailesilassie said: “I hope that the refugee application system here could be quicker. Trapped in the long process, asylum seekers kill their time, youth and hope.” 

As one of the lucky ones living in a free and safe land, the Ethiopian said he had a job to do. For him, getting refugee status is not only about saving his life; it is about extending the fight for a better future for his country and people. 

He now has a younger brother and sister living with him in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province. They are seeking asylum here as both of them were under threat and detained in Ethiopia on charges of helping their elder brother leave the country.

“No one is actually free and safe until all of us are free and safe,” he said. 

As a member of Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia, he has raised awareness of the brutality of his country’s ruling regime by running social media campaigns and holding rallies here. 

“We want to share the problems facing Ethiopia -- mass killings, torture, genocide, restriction of press freedom and civic movement -- and expose the situation there to foreign donor nations,” he said. “We want to be the voice of the voiceless in Ethiopia.”

“Also, we are targeting Ethiopians within Ethiopia. They are usually uneducated and unaware of why they are hungry and how to fix it.” 

During the US Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Korea on April 17, they staged a protest in front of the National Assembly building to call on the US to stop offering foreign aid to the Ethiopian government. 

The ruling government -- a US ally in its fight against terrorist group Al-Shabab in Somalia -- has received significant financial assistance from the US and European countries, with its economy heavily dependent on foreign aid. 

“Foreign powers should stop financing the authoritarian government to save Ethiopian people because the money goes into the pockets of high-ranking officials,” he said. 

Many foreign donors to Ethiopia have been criticized by human rights activists for being silent about Ethiopia’s human rights abuses for the sake of protecting their strategic partnerships on peacekeeping and security with the ruling regime.

The European Parliament issued in January 2016 a resolution on the situation in Ethiopia. One of its pledges was to keep a close eye on the use of funds from European development assistance “to make sure that none of it trickles off to the central government to be used to prolong the suppression of its own people.” 

Recalling the peaceful candlelight vigils that continued for several months in South Korea against President Park Geun-hye, Hailessilassie said, “That is the democracy and freedom I want to bring back home.”

“When I see you guys holding protests freely and peacefully, it was just so amazing for me. We would be shot by police if we raise our voices against the government in public,” he said.

“If we could get freedom today, I would go back to my country right now. I like my job as a journalist. I like to speak my own language. I want to live with my family and pursue my culture in my land,” he said. Read more here

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)

60 New Ethiopian Immigrants Arrive in Israel

Sixty new Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia arrived at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport this week. They were greeted by jubilant family members and supporters, who danced and waved Israeli flags.

The latest Ethiopian aliyah follows a group of 72 Ethiopian immigrants who arrived in Israel on June 6, in a collaboration between the Jewish Agency for Israel and the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ).

Additional immigrant flights from Ethiopia are expected to arrive this summer as part of the Israeli government’s Ethiopian aliyah program, which was reactivated in October 2016.

ICEJ, a Christian Zionist global ministry, has worked to raise funds for the first year of the reintroduced program, which will bring 1,400 new immigrants to the Jewish state.

Some 9,000 Jews still reside in Ethiopia and are awaiting Israeli government approval to make aliyah. Read more here

Despite Risk of Violence, Over 350,000 Ethiopian Migrants Still in Saudi

June 22, 2017 - Thousands of Ethiopian migrant workers in Saudi Arabia have pleaded to the Ethiopian government to expedite their return by helping them prepare documents to secure exit visas, as the Gulf country prepares to begin deporting as many as half a million Ethiopians.

It has been nearly three months since the Saudi Arabian government gave 90 days to all unauthorized migrant workers in Saudi Arabia to leave the country.

Saudi Arabia and neighboring Qatar are among the few countries in the world that force foreign workers to secure exit visas before they leave the country. In order to secure the visas, other documents must also be in order.

Since Saudi officials announced those with illegal status to leave the country Ethiopian immigrants are strongly accusing Ethiopian embassy in Saudi Arabia for not helping them to return to Ethiopia.

Yet roughly a week until the 90 days grace period ends and after months of bureaucratic delays at the Ethiopian Embassy in Saudi Arabia, only 80,000 Ethiopians were able to get travel documents that will legally help them exit the country.

An estimated 750,000 Ethiopian migrants live in Saudi Arabia, among which a significant majority are unauthorized workers.

Ethiopians enter to Saudi Arabia through various channels. Some traveled as authorized workers on planes but more people enter the country by land with the help of smugglers. There are also some who remained in the country after they travelled there for the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.

So far, only 30,000 migrants were shuttled back to Ethiopia. However, with the current pace of repatriation, most migrants will still be in Saudi Arabia when the grace period ends. Saudi authorities have said they will start to raid and deport migrant workers on June 30.

In 2013 when Saudi authorities engaged in similar operations, Ethiopian migrants were the victims of deadly physical assaults. Workers who sought to return to Ethiopia were held in makeshift detention centers without adequate food or shelter.

During the 2013 deportation, Ethiopians used social media to organize their protest against Saudi Arabia.

Despite these hardships and the Ethiopian government's promises of a swift resettlement, there are migrants who do not want to return to Ethiopia, where there are few economic opportunities. As the workers fret for their futures, the Ethiopian government has pledged to cut by half the price of a plane ticket home for those who will fly with Ethiopian Airlines, as well as offering resettlement and jobs upon arrival. Most view these as false promises however.

Source: Global voice

Africa's Richest Man May Quit Ethiopia Over Mining Dispute

Dangote Cement Plc, controlled by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, said it may shut its operations in Ethiopia if authorities in the central state of Oromia don’t reverse an order to cement makers to hand over control of some parts of their businesses to local young people.

Oromia state’s East Shewa Zone administration wants the Nigerian company to outsource its pumice, sand and clay mines to youth groups or be responsible for “any problems” that may arise, according to a letter from the authority to Dangote that was seen by Bloomberg and verified with a representative of East Shewa’s administration. The regional government sees the transfer of jobs in pumice production as a way to ease youth unemployment and quell unrest, according to the document.

Any mismanagement of mining infrastructure including buildings and excavators could “lead to total breakdown of our business,” Dangote Executive Director Edwin Devakumar said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, last week. The cement maker will write to the federal government this week to ask it to intervene and will consider shutting the plant in Mugher, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of Addis Ababa, as a “last option” if this fails, he said. The company listed Ethiopia as one of its three “key” markets, along with Nigeria and South Africa, in a presentation in May.

There’s “no intention to displace any investment,” so long as Dangote is “working by the laws and regulations in our region and country,” Tekele Uma, head of Oromia’s transport authority, said by phone. “If anyone’s complaining about Oromia regional state, we’re ready to talk with them. Any investment can come. Any investment can go.”

Motuma Mekassa, Ethiopia’s minister of mining, petroleum and natural gas, said by phone he wasn’t aware of an attempt by Dangote to reach his office. An official at the federal ministry said Dangote should make an approach through “appropriate channels,” as opposed to through the media, asking for his name to be withheld, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

The Ethiopian government is searching for ways to reduce youth unemployment after violent protests by Oromo communities over alleged land dispossession, political marginalization and repression led the government to declare a state of emergency last year. Dangote Cement was among several businesses attacked during the unrest. The protests triggered a 20 percent slump in foreign investment to $1.2 billion in the six months through December compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the government.

Foreign Investment in Ethiopia Slumps After Business Attacks

The order to outsource mining is “a violation of our rights because the government has given us a mining license,’’ said Devakumar, who was Dangote Cement’s chief executive officer until 2015. “If I don’t have limestone and additives my cement plant is useless.”

lthough the disputes haven’t forced Nigeria’s biggest listed company to halt production, it will miss targets if the impasse isn’t broken, the executive director said. Disruption in pumice flows will reduce output and trigger job cuts, Devakumar said. Dangote employs about 1,500 workers directly in the country, while an estimated 15,000 people earn a living indirectly through the firm’s cement and mining facilities, he said.

The disagreement is also hampering Dangote’s Ethiopian expansion plans. The company has stopped an advance payment on a contract to double production capacity of the 2.5 million metric-ton per year plant after signing an agreement, Devakumar said.

The company has spent more than $700 million in the country and is “discouraged from investing more,” he said.

Ethiopia’s government said in February it’s only likely to attract $3.2 billion of foreign direct investment this year, compared with a target of $3.5 billion.

Dangote Cement, which has a market value of $11.1 billion, has expanded rapidly across Africa since 2014 and now operates in 9 countries aside from Nigeria. The shares were little changed in Lagos on Thursday. Read more here

Starvation looms as food runs out in drought-hit Ethiopia

The Somali people of Ethiopia's southeast have a name for the drought that has killed livestock, dried up wells and forced hundreds of thousands into camps: sima, which means "equalised".

It's an appropriate name, they say, because this drought has left no person untouched, spared no corner of their arid region. And it has forced 7.8 million people across the whole of Ethiopia to rely on emergency food handouts to stay alive.

But by next month, that food will have run out, aid agencies say.

Droughts are common in Ethiopia, and in past years the government and international community have mounted impressive efforts to curb starvation.

This year though, Africa's second most-populous country is struggling to find the money for food aid, say aid agencies.

"We're looking at the food pipeline actually breaking, so the food is running out in about a month's time," said John Graham, country director for Save the Children. "After that, we don't know what's going to happen."

A woman uses a branch to make shelter at a displaced persons camp.   | Photo Credit: AFP

Distracted donors

Once a global byword for starvation and poverty after a famine in 1984-85 killed hundreds of thousands, Ethiopia has seen its economy grow rapidly in the last decade. Health indicators such as infant mortality and malaria deaths have also improved.

A stronger economy allowed Ethiopia to spend an impressive $766 million (683 million euros) fighting one of its worst droughts in decades in 2015-16.

This year however, things are different.

Economic growth has slowed, due in part to protests spurred by long-simmering grievances against Ethiopia's one-party state.

Donors have also been distracted by other regional crises.

To the southeast, Somalia is suffering from severe drought, with warnings it could tip into famine.

Ethiopia’s western neighbour, South Sudan, has suffered four months of famine, and extreme hunger is at its highest levels ever after more than three years of civil war.

Ethiopia by contrast has a strong central government and is relatively free from conflict.

But with the situation so desperate in the region, donors aren't responding to the country's emergency as they have in the past, said Mitiku Kassa, head of Ethiopia's National Disaster Risk Management Commission, Mitiku Kassa.

"They are stressed with the needs, especially from those countries which (have) declared famine," Mitiku said. "That is why it is underfunded."

People are seen walking at a displaced persons camp in Werder.   | Photo Credit: AFP

'Skipping meals is common'

Even though Ethiopia has contributed $117 million of its own money this year and the international community $302 million, a funding gap of $481 million remains, according to the United Nations.

In the drought ravaged town of Warder, the hundreds of displaced families crowding a ramshackle camp say handouts of rice and sugar are becoming less frequent.

"Skipping meals is common," said Halimo Halim, a grandmother living with her children in a shelter made of sticks and pieces of plastic. "Skipping is the order of the day."

Families of nomadic herders such as Halimo's are central to the economy of Ethiopia's southeastern Somali region.

The drought has deprived goats, sheep and donkeys of water, killing them or making them so weak that by the time the rains come they perish in the cold.

Around 465,000 people who have lost their livestock have migrated to an estimated 250 camps in the region.

The settlements are often located near water sources, but that presents its own problems.

In Warder, workers are present around the clock at nearby wells to make sure people drawing water chlorinate it before they drink it, lest they contract "acute watery diarrhoea", which has broken out in the region.

Some aid workers say this is actually cholera, which Ethiopia has long been accused of covering up to protect its image.

A picture taken on June 9, 2017, in Wender shows a child carrying a bag in a displaced persons camp due to Ethiopia's drought.   | Photo Credit: AFP

Paying the bill

Aid agencies have turned to so-called "non-traditional" donors like the Gulf countries for funding.

At the same time they are keeping a nervous eye on budget negotiations in top funder the United States, where President Donald Trump has proposed slashing the aid budget.

But some humanitarians privately complain that the Ethiopian government isn't doing enough to call attention to its plight.

They argue that Addis Ababa does not want to distract from its development gains or resurrect the old image of Ethiopia as a place of mass starvation.

"There is no shortage of funds to combat drought," communications minister Negeri Lencho insisted earlier this month.

If the international community doesn't send more money, Mitiku said the government would be "forced" to tap its development budget for drought relief in July.

But with a lead time of about four months required to procure emergency food, the UN says that may be too late.

In Warder, those uprooted by drought, like Sanara Ahmed, are wondering how long they can survive on unreliable food handouts.

"Some support was there, but it cannot substitute for our dependability on our livelihood," Sanara said. Read more here