Relatives of Etinesh, 11 years old, and Torokan, 8 years old, who will be sold into marriage that day, prepare meals to be served during the marriage celebration at dawn in a village in the Northern Amhara region of Ethiopia.
Etinesh and Torokan, sit in the bridal tent while celebrations for their marriages take place.
Children play on trees during marriage celebrations of two other village children.
Torokan and Etinesh walk with their new husbands to their new villages after the celebrations for their marriages.
Ambaun, 9 years old, and Deghe, 7 years old, sit in their matrimonial tent before their wedding celebration’s commence in a village in the Northern Amhara region.
Relatives of Ambaun and Deghe cut meat to be served at the children's wedding before the celebration..
Asafu, 10 years old, walks back to her mother after leaving her bridal tent before her wedding celebrations begin.
Weinit, 24, and Busunesh, 27, escaped from the same village in Ethiopia a decade after being sold into marriage by their families. They are now sex worker in the "Merkato" neighborhood of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital.
Men walk through the area where commercial sex workers wait for their clients in the "Merkato" neighborhood of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.
Agare', 14 years old, escaped three years before, from her village, where she was sold into marriage when She was 8 years old.
Agare’ stands outside the shack where she works as a sex worker while waiting for clients in the center of the city of Bahir Dar, a commercial hub in the Northern Amhara region of Ethiopia.
A man walks through the neighborhood of Bahir Dar where commercial sex workers wait for clients night and day, in the Northern Amhara region of Ethiopia.
Fit Fit, 25 years old, and her son Letmegaeta, 11 years old, outside the shack where they live.
Fit Fit, 25 years old, and her son Letmegaeta, 11 years old, portrayed in the shack where they live and where Fit Fit works as a commercial sex worker in the city of Bahir Dar. Fit Fit escaped from her husband to whom she was sold into marriage at the age of 7 years old. She was helped by a relative who also escaped years before and came back to her village to rescue her.
While it may seem shocking, in Ethiopia girls are married off at ages as young as 5 years old, and 48% of rural women are married before age 15. Photographer Guy Calaf documents these young child brides and their marriages in this photo essay.
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Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia. DFID - UK Department for International Development CC BY 2.0
Ethiopia has been in the throes of a civil war. The federal government, headed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, has been fighting against Tigrayan rebels in the northwest region of the country. Recently, it appears Tigray fighters are at an advantage as they push south towards the nation’s capital. In response, the government declared a state of emergency Nov. 2 and began to roundup civilians of Tigrayian descent. Civilians with no connection to the rebels are being detained, forced from their homes, plucked off the street or at work. The United Nations stated that more than 1,000 people have been detained since the government declared the state of emergency. Additionally, they reported that 70 drivers contracted by the United Nations and agencies to deliver aid to the country have been detained by officials as well. Along with the detained drivers, 16 employees of the United Nations were detained following the state of emergency. These employees were present because the Tigray region is in desperate need of aid after airstrikes fell on the region in mid-October. The dire situation in Tigray has been labeled an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
The civil war broke out after tensions between the Tigray’s People Liberation Front political party and the federal government came to a point. The party previously held control of the Ethiopian government for decades, until Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018. In 2020, the T.P.L.F attacked a military base in the Tigray region, prompting the Prime Minister to order a military offensive in response. In June, the Ethiopian military was forced to withdraw from the Tigray region, marking a major defeat and subsequent turning point of the conflict.
In July 2021, the United Nations requested access to the region because an estimated 400,000 people were experiencing famine, with another 1.8 million at risk. Additionally, 1.7 million people have been internally displaced while thousands of others have fled the country.
The state of emergency declared on Nov. 2 allows officials to search anyone’s home and arrest without a warrant solely based on suspicion of association with rebel groups. The recent arrests have included other ethnicities, but the majority of detentions have been people of Tigrayan descent. Along with the large-scale detentions, public figures allied with the government have taken to social media inciting hate speech against ethnic Tigrayans. The head of the Ethiopian government communication office stated that the detentions were not ethnically motivated, but the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights expressed concern at the broad terms of the recent state of emergency.
Dana Flynn
Dana is a recent graduate from Tufts University with a degree in English. While at Tufts she enjoyed working on a campus literary magazine and reading as much as possible. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she loves to explore and learn new things.
A refugee camp in Ethiopia. Oberhaus. CC2.0
Rising tensions in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region pose a severe threat for the East African country and for stability across the Horn of Africa. Most urgently, the fighting places millions of people in danger and in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
Map of Ethiopia’s regions, with Tigray in the far north. Jfblanc. CC4.0
Ethiopia, the largest and most populous country in the Horn of Africa region, is home to many different religions, languages and ethnic groups. The recent fighting is taking place in Tigray, Ethiopia’s northernmost region along the border with Eritrea. The conflict is between Ethiopia’s central government led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF came to power in 1991 and established a coalition where Ethiopia was divided into 10 distinct regions that each had political autonomy, allowing the TPLF to become a key player in Ethiopian politics. The TPLF remained in power for 27 years until rising concerns of political corruption and human rights abuses resulted in nationwide protests. As a result, Abiy Ahmed was elected the prime minister of Ethiopia in 2018 and began to reduce the TPLF’s power. While Ahmed advocates for a strong federal government that unites all Ethiopians regardless of ethnicity, the TPLF wants more political autonomy and sees Ahmed’s central government as a hindrance to the TPLF’s political agenda.
The current dispute began when the TPLF wanted to hold a regional election in September. Prime Minister Ahmed denied the request, since all national elections in Ethiopia were canceled due to COVID-19. Fighting began on Nov. 4 when Tigrayan forces were accused of attacking a military base belonging to Ahmed’s government. The violence in the region continues to escalate.
Abiy Ahmed is widely recognized for brokering peace and ending a military conflict with neighboring Eritrea, an effort that resulted in Ahmed receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. However the current escalating violence is causing the international community to raise its eyebrows. According to Kjetil Tronvoll, a scholar of Ethiopian politics at Bjorknes University College in Norway, “The Nobel Peace Prize has until recently shielded Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from international scrutiny and criticism. However, the warfare on Tigray has opened the eyes of many diplomats to the way political power is wielded in Ethiopia.”
Rwandan President Paul Kagame (left) and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (right). Kagame. CC2.0
On Nov. 28, the Ethiopian army gained control of the Tigrayan regional capital of Mekelle, with Prime Minister Ahmed declaring victory shortly thereafter. However, Tigrayan forces have yet to surrender. Since the conflict began, telephone, internet and road access to the Tigray region has been suspended, making it difficult to know what is happening on the ground. Shortly after Ahmed declared victory, rockets were fired at the Eritrean capital of Asmara, where according to the U.S. embassy, “Six explosions occurred in the city at about 10:13 p.m.” The Ethiopian government has declared a six-month-long state of emergency in the Tigray region. There is concern that the conflict could exacerbate ethnic division in other parts of Ethiopia, or even spread to neighboring countries such as Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia. With the conflict having no end in sight, it is unclear to predict whether current military efforts are enough to end the fighting.
Refugee children in Ethiopia. United Nations Photo. CC2.0
Before the recent fighting broke out in Tigray, the region was already home to over 200,000 refugees, the majority coming from Eritrea. The current fighting is estimated to affect over 2 million people, with larger estimates of up to 9 million. As many as 43,000 have already fled to neighboring countries, with Sudan preparing to accept as many as 200,000 refugees. Thousands of people are internally displaced in Shire, near the border with Eritrea. Aid groups are urging the Ethiopian government to allow access to roads crucial to the Tigray region. This year has been especially difficult in Ethiopia, as a devastating locust outbreak, floods and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have ravaged the country. According to the International Rescue Committee, the most important thing that can be done by forces is to adhere to international law, ensure that schools, hospitals and homes are not targets, and allow humanitarian aid to get to where it is needed.
Check out the International Rescue Committee, a global aid and development organization providing crucial humanitarian assistance to communities in Tigray, here.
Click here to access the website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is working to establish a new shelter site for Tigrayan refugees in Sudan.
Megan Gürer
Megan is a Turkish-American student at Wellesley College in Massachusetts studying Biological Sciences. Passionate about environmental issues and learning about other cultures, she dreams of exploring the globe. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, singing, and composing music.
According to the legends, men and angels worked together to construct the remarkable rock-hewn churches of Lalibela — the men working through the day and the angels taking over during the night.
Many historians believe that these great monolithic churches were commissioned during the reign of Saint Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, who ruled Ethiopia in the late 12th century and early 13th century, when the town was known as Roha. When Lalibela, whose name means “the bees recognise his sovereignty” in Old Agaw, was born, it is said that a swarm of bees surrounded him, which his mother took as a sign of his future reign as Emperor of Ethiopia. So the mythos tells us, Lalibela later visited Jerusalem, and after its capture by the Muslim caliphate in 1187 he swore to build another such sacred place of pilgrimage in his own country.
Each of Lalibela’s eleven churches was carved from a single piece of solid rock to symbolize spirituality and humility. The churches seem timeless, painstakingly excavated from the ground itself. It is believed that they were constructed first by digging out a kind of moat and were then hewn from the square rock that remained. The degree of craftsmanship and countless hours of heavy manual labour that it must have taken to carve out these wonders with hand tools alone is astounding. The churches are connected through a labyrinth of tunnels and sit beside a small river, called Jordan, and many other features also have Biblical names.
Just as astounding as the architecture, is that the churches have been in continuous use throughout the centuries since they were built.
Today, Lalibela is a town of no more than ten thousand people, but over a tenth of those are priests. Ritual and religion are the twin fulcrums upon which life in this place spins. Many times a year, there are processions, fasting, dancing, and the sound of many voices lifted up in song.
I feel privileged to have been in the holy city of Lalibela on many occasions and it continues to be one of the most fascinating photography trips I take anywhere in the world. It is a jump back in time, a photographic journey beyond compare. With the churches dimly lit by flickering candles, surrounded by faith and roughhewn rock — it is an entire world suspended in the 12th century.
Easter week in Lalibela is the most extraordinary in the year, when many thousands of devotees dressed in white will gather from all over the country, and father afield, to profess their love and Christian faith.
We land, and I arrive at the tiny, ancient airport terminal. To the left is an unmoving, rusted out conveyor belt with no hope of resurrection. Dragging my bags along behind me I reach the famous ‘Shuttle’. We are told to put the bags around back in the trunk. It is jammed, of course.
A few people toss their bags on the roof and the rest keep them on their laps once seated. I find a seat wedged between my bags and the stairwell, ending up intimately, uncomfortably close to my seat-mate. After a flat and long slow climb we reach the town on three and a half wheels.
“Ferengui... Ferengui...” (Foreigner... Foreigner...), I hear them murmuring amongst themselves. The time is 5:30 in the morning, and it is still dark. The inside of the church is small, austere, and it is difficult to move around discreetly by oneself let alone with a camera, and no cloak to help me meld with the darkness so thick that the eyes can hardly adjust. There is a candle here and there, occasional light through a tiny upper window, and the sudden glare of an opening door. Precious little else to see by.
The moon shines brightly over the hillsides and the lines of ascending faithful are seen thanks to the candles they carry up towards the church. In the morning half-light, the first chants begin. Voices lift.
Suspended in a parenthesis of time, I am witness to the rising dawn over the year 1100, as the first light breaks free of the horizon.
Swathed in long white robes, men and women come up the hill in silence. The lines of the path are drawn in the darkness by cloth and candle.
I have found a spot to wait in, where the faithful will have to pass by me. The more timid among them hid their faces in their cloaks, but the less so look at me squarely in the eyes. No aggression. Simply curious, trying to discern what on earth I am doing up here before dawn, if I am not here to pray, and what I am so patiently photographing.
The hours seem like moments, and I am alone, though among many. The fervor of the devotees as I move through the shadowed churches touches me deeply. These scenes, even for a skeptic who tries to stay propped behind his camera and maintaining distance, are magical. Moving.
HARRY FISCH
Harry Fisch is a travel photographer and leader of photo tours to exotic destinations with my company Nomad Photo Expeditions. He is also a winner and loser of the 2012 World National Geographic Photo Contest.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA