Post
by Abere » 24 Oct 2025, 13:15
The poverty situation in Addis Ababa today is the worst in the country. Many residents describe their lives as increasingly unbearable due to the combined effects of inflation, mass evictions under the corridor development project, and growing unemployment and discrimination under an Oromo-dominated city administration. To many, these conditions feel like a silent war on the city’s poor, especially when compared with the visible, armed conflict taking place in the Amhara region.
While the Amhara region faces open warfare and drone attacks, much of its population are still farmers who can at least produce some of their own food. In contrast, the people of Addis Ababa, who depend almost entirely on waged employment, face hunger and joblessness in a city where the main employer is OLF-PP government , which is politically and ethnically biased. As a result, Addis Ababans are dying not on the battlefield but in slow motion — through hunger, hopelessness, and exclusion/discrimination.
Huresa's Merkata going hungry and destitute:
Recent research shows that over 92% of low-income households in Addis Ababa experience food insecurity, and about one-third suffer from severe food insecurity (Tadesse et al., 2024).
Tadesse, A. et al. (2024). Household Food Insecurity and Associated Factors Among Low-Income Households in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The the city’s policies of Orommumization from Corridorization /redevelopment to hiring employed as silent war targeting non-Oromo ethnic groups ( especially Amhara) through economically, rather than militarily means.
In the Amhara countryside, where much of the population engages in subsistence agriculture, households can at least rely on their own food production even amidst conflict. In contrast, urban residents of Addis Ababa must confront inflation, unemployment, rent increases, and forced eviction — all while lacking farmland or stable income.
Addis Ababans are hopeless, not because of drones or battlefronts, but because of the daily struggle for survival in an economy stacked against the poor. Amhara farmers die in battle, but at least they can eat what they produce. Addis Ababa’s poor die slowly — from hunger, rent, and hopelessness.
