Members of parliament, journalists and community activists are being held in Kilinto and Kality prisons in connection with the unrest in Amhara region. Their families say they are going through difficult times.
In Addis Ababa, a mother of three told Meseret Media that her husband, a former bakery worker, was arrested two years ago after being accused of listening on his phone to a song said to glorify the Fano armed group.
“For a year, I was visiting him, but since I didn’t have the money to go to the prison, I stopped a year ago,” she said. She now works as a daily labourer at a construction site, where her children spend most of their time.
Two of her children have already dropped out of school, while the youngest has yet to start. Unable to afford rent, the family has been living in a tent inside an unfinished building for the past year.
Another political prisoner told Meseret Media that, before his arrest, her brother had been working as a tailor, supporting their parents and helping to pay for his younger sister’s college education. Last year, she said, he was arrested at his workplace after authorities said he had traveled to Gondar, which they believed was intended to support terrorists. As a result, the business was shut down, and their families were dispersed. Their younger sister dropped out of school because of the fees and went in search of work, but was unable to find a job. ‘She took her own life in July,’ she said. The sister, who said she visited her brother once a month, said that family members of two prisoners had taken their own lives, while others had been forced to live on the streets.
In related news, political prisoners in Kilitino have begun a hunger strike on the eve of the Ethiopian New Year to protest the killings carried out by the federal government against the Amhara people. They are also denouncing the displacement of residents in Addis Ababa under the guise of ‘corridor development,’ during which many young people from the city were rounded up and disappeared. In addition, more than 300 prisoners remain in detention without prosecution.
