A rare insight into life inside the blockade
Dec 12th 2022Share
By Tom Gardner
As a teenager Kibrom dreamed of America. His older brother had lucked out in the green-card lottery in 2010 and Kibrom longed to join him. His mother died when Kibrom (a pseudonym) was three; his father drank himself to death a year later. Raised by his uncle, Kibrom studied hard, winning a scholarship to high school and then going on to university. He used a bank loan to open a garage in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray in northern Ethiopia. He still thought of America – but he shrank from joining other young Ethiopians who were making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. He concentrated on building his business: within a year he’d paid back the loan. Then came war.
When the gunfire started in November 2020, as government forces clashed with local Tigrayan fighters, Kibrom cowered at home with his sister. He had been pleased when Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018, inspired by Abiy’s promise to create jobs for the young. But Kibrom soon found himself pulled in different directions, as Abiy started whipping up animosity towards ethnic Tigrayans, who make up 6% of the population. He tried to quash the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (tplf), a political party that had dominated national politics for decades and remained the regional power in Tigray.