Zecharias Zelalem

1 month ago | ecfr.eu | Zecharias Zelalem

Policy Brief The use of military drones is spreading across Africa, further destabilising countries facing deep tensions between typically authoritarian governments and rebel groups. While these governments have frequently pursued violence over dialogue in the past, the increasing availability of drones makes the military option seem cheaper and easier. In Ethiopia, where drone strikes are widespread, the government’s use of drones has not been enough to dislodge rebel groups from their...

Dec 19, 2024 | theglobeandmail.com | Zecharias Zelalem

Oct 26, 2024 | telegraph.co.uk | Zecharias Zelalem

Images showing appalling conditions at migration centres in 2020 Credit: Telegraph exclusive “Thank you, Zecharias, have a good day,” Desta told me at the end of our first video chat, catching me off guard. I didn’t know what to say – you can’t respond in kind when the person on the other end of the line is under fed, suffering from heat stroke and sitting in a crowded, disease infested migrant prison facility that he says smells of sewage. Desta was among tens of thousands of Ethiopian...

Oct 15, 2024 | aljazeera.com | Zecharias Zelalem

Omar Hassan Warsame was a larger-than-life figure in the Somali town of Golweyn, where his sizeable farm provided maize, bananas and jobs that helped sustain the community. The 65-year-old and a contingent of up to a dozen of his employees would tend to crops on the plot in the Lower Shebelle region, some 110km (68 miles) southwest of the capital Mogadishu – which helped spare locals from the effects of the region’s recurring droughts.

Oct 14, 2024 | mg.co.za | Des Erasmus |Zecharias Zelalem

The camera pans over a gruesome mangled mess of blood, limbs and bodies as wailing voices console each other and discuss how to dislodge dismembered human remains from the wreckage of an obliterated Isuzu truck. The horrific footage, far too graphic to publish in its entirety, surfaced undated and unverified on the web earlier this year. Anonymous uploaders claimed it depicted the aftermath of a deadly drone strike in Ethiopia’s north-western Amhara region on 19 February.