Ethiopia is in the midst of a kidnapping epidemic
The road from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to the town of Debark in the northern highlands is one of the country’s busiest thoroughfares. These days it is also among the most dangerous. In recent months travellers have been terrorised by armed gangs who kidnap bus drivers and their passengers for ransom. On July 3rd more than 100 people were taken hostage by highwaymen demanding up to 1m birr ($17,500) per captive. “We’re too poor to pay,” says one relative. The sibling of another hostage says the kidnappers warned families that without payment they would never see their loved ones alive again.
The government of Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, does not want to talk about kidnapping. It would rather discuss its efforts to kickstart a debt-laden economy. On July 28th Abiy announced a series of liberal reforms that enabled a long-awaited deal with the IMF for a $3.4bn loan secured a day later. More market-friendly reforms will encourage donors and investors. But so too would political stability. Negotiations with the IMF had been held up for more than two years by civil war in the northern region of Tigray, in which more than half a million people are thought to have died. Abiy’s government hopes the deal signals to the outside world that Ethiopia is returning to normality.
That is optimistic. A peace deal signed in 2022 between Abiy’s federal government and the authorities in Tigray brought a measure of calm to that region. But the good news ends there. In neighbouring Amhara, Ethiopia’s army has been battling regional militias known as the Fano for more than a year. In Oromia, the region surrounding Addis Ababa, it is fighting against the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), a rebel movement which says it is struggling for the self-determination of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group. Neither conflict is close to ending: talks between the government and the OLA failed in November; prominent Fano leaders have ruled out negotiations. If anything, the violence is becoming more entrenched—not just in these regions but elsewhere, too. “It’s metastasising,” says a Western diplomat. “It’s quite, quite terrifying.”
The extent of kidnapping shows why. What began as isolated incidents confined to the remote parts of Oromia, where the state has always been weak, has spread across the country (see chart). Targets were once chosen for their political significance. Now almost anyone is at risk outside Addis Ababa. Even Tigray, renowned before the war for its strong internal security, has recently witnessed a spate of abductions for ransom.
Several trends underlie the crisis. The first is the weakening and fragmenting of Ethiopia’s armed opposition movements. The OLA, for instance, has little to show for more than five years of insurgency. It has yet to win control of a single urban centre; threats to take over the capital have repeatedly proved empty. Funding from supporters in the overseas diaspora is thought to have dried up. So splinter groups proliferate and resort to kidnapping and other forms of extortion to stay afloat.
The second trend is a weakening of the state. In large parts of the country the government has lost its monopoly on force. In north-west Amhara it is unable to protect refugees from neighbouring Sudan. They report almost daily predations by bandits and militiamen. In post-war Tigray some frustrated members of the Tigray Defence Force, the regional paramilitary outfit which fought against the federal government, have taken to the bush. Across the north lurks the spectre of what in Ethiopia have historically been known as shiftas: armed outlaws surviving off plunder.
The state is also in some ways complicit. The line between rebel and government today is blurred. Victims of kidnapping regularly accuse officials and security forces of involvement, whether by turning a blind eye or taking a share of the ransoms. Officials and rebels are known to cut deals. Earlier this year the government is understood to have paid off local rebels before the inauguration of a luxury resort in order to avoid an incident in the presence of foreign dignitaries. And the government has an indirect hand in the lawlessness, since police routinely arrest people only to demand a “fee” to release them. The line between hostage-taking and policing can be fuzzy, too.
Blame the victims
All of this is compounded by the dire state of the economy. Parts of northern Ethiopia are nearing famine. Civil servants go months without pay. For the growing number of unemployed youth, joining a rebel group may be the only option. “It is a marketplace of militias,” says Jonah Wedekind, a researcher. “Whichever entity provides the best material incentives for fighters to join gains the upper hand.”
Many Ethiopians complain that the government is indifferent to their plight. Addis Ababa, after all, is mostly safe. Officials and wealthier Ethiopians can avoid perilous roads by flying (Ethiopian Airlines, the state carrier, is enjoying a spike in domestic traffic). When pressed in a recent meeting with opposition parties, the prime minister appeared to blame the public, suggesting that the security forces could not enforce the law because elements of the local population were sheltering “kidnappers and looters”.
Yet his government’s economic ambitions depend on law and order. Foreign investors are running scared: a $2bn geothermal project in Oromia was recently abandoned because of insecurity. At the heart of the prime minister’s vision for the country is high-end tourism. But tourists demand safety no less than foreign investors. “Ethiopia is shrinking into Addis Ababa,” says a veteran businessman. “And kidnapping is largely responsible.” ■
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