Dire Dawa seeks harmony as ethnic tensions run high

At a recent public meeting organised by the newly nominated city mayor, a young woman who lives in Mermasa area of Dire Dawa depicts a city that is going through a period of polarizing tension and widespread anxiety. Her message,…
Assessing the One Year of Abiy’s Premiership

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” (Marx) That in the…
Photographer chronicles contrasts and characters

Over the last three decades, South African photographer Guy Tillim, 56, has borne witness to the dramatic change in African metropolises. While working as a photographer for Reuters and Agence France Press, he has often been at the right place…
Interview: The makings of a Gedeo crisis

The Gedeo displacement crisis in Guji zones in the south of Ethiopia has been largely overlooked and neglected, even though it has been going on for a year. At the peak of the crisis last July over 900,000 ethnic Gedeos…