Category World News

Awra Amba, Ethiopia – Aregash Nuru pointed at the rolling green landscape in Ethiopia’s central Amhara region. “We used to watch sunset from the hills”, she said with a sigh. “But no more”.

These days, it is too dangerous to risk leaving the safety of the village, according to Nuru, a 30-year-old accountant and local tour guide. Gunshots can sometimes be heard from afar. Locals have been kidnapped. Schools have been forced to shut.

“The political situation has changed everything”, added Nuru, staring down at the ground in sadness.

For decades, violent insecurity and conflict have struck many parts of Ethiopia – none more so than during the Tigray conflict between 2020 and 2022, which led to the deaths of some 600, 000 people in the East African nation, estimates have found.

But one place that had remained relatively untouched was the village of Awra Amba, set in the highlands of Amhara. The community, which was founded in the 1970s, is a pioneering utopian project home to about 600 people who live by strictly egalitarian rules, including the equal division of work by gender.

Over the years, Awra Amba has gained recognition for its efforts, winning awards for its approach to conflict resolution – which includes special dispute meetings and democratically-elected committees – as well as its emphasis on peace. Officials from the Ethiopian government and international bodies such as the United Nations, the Red Cross and Oxfam have come to observe the community’s famed example.

However, during the past two years, a deadly conflict has taken hold in Amhara – a region home to the UNESCO-protected rock-hewn churches of Lalibela and the historic fortress of Gondar – as the armed group Fano has violently clashed with federal government soldiers of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF).

Since the conflict began in April 2023, after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed attempted to dissolve regional forces into police or federal military, there have been reports of mass gender-based violence and thousands of murders perpetrated by both the ENDF and Fano, who are demanding full control of territory they claim is theirs.

The nonprofit International Crisis Group has called the development an “ominous new war”. &nbsp, Amnesty International has called for global attention to this “human rights crisis” while Human Rights Watch has condemned “war crimes” committed by the ENDF.

“There is a trauma now in the region, there has been devastation”, said Bantayehu Shiferaw Chanie, a research associate at the Centre for International Policy Studies in Ottawa, Canada, who is from Amhara and worked in Ethiopia until July 2023.

In turn, the pacifist community of Awra Amba has been caught up in the crossfire of the spiralling conflict.

Economy upturned

Nuru is a member of the community’s cooperative, which pools all of its income and resources together. They use the funds for projects, including a care home for the elderly, support for orphans and a welfare charity to help people in need. But the once-thriving, self-sufficient economy has been turned on its head, Nuru said.

Awra Amba once welcomed thousands of visitors a year – domestic and international tourists alike, as well as classes of schoolchildren – who could stay at an on-site lodge and buy the community’s products, such as handwoven garments and textiles.

But overnight, that income has evaporated.

“There used to be many foreigners who came to visit”, said Worksew Mohammed, 25, another former tour guide in Awra Amba. “We were so happy to share our story of peace with them. But now there are none. It is too dangerous for them to come here”.

Community members are even fearful of travelling to markets to sell their agricultural produce, such as maize and teff, a popular grain in Ethiopia, since robberies by gangs along the highway are now common due to the prevailing state of lawlessness.

“Trade has been impacted”, said Ayalsew Zumra, a 39-year-old community member. “Going to other towns is difficult, sometimes it is not safe. That means we can’t transport the produce. But that’s how we make most]of our] income”.

Community members, who live in humble adobe homes and plough the fields with oxen, are also being affected by the ongoing conflict in other ways. &nbsp, In attempts to hinder rebels, the Ethiopian government routinely blocks the internet across the Amhara region, the second most populous in the country.

Alamu Nuruhak, a 24-year-old studying IT at university, was back in Awra Amba, where he was born and raised, to visit his family. However, due to the blackout, he could not study.

“It’s difficult here to get anything done”, said Nuruhak.

The community has also been forced to shut down a school, for which it provided half the funds during its construction in 2019 and then donated to the state, due to the complexities of the conflict and this perceived association with the government. Last year, Fano fighters descended on Awra Amba and demanded that teaching stop immediately.

“The government wanted the school to continue operating, but the other forces]Fano] didn’t want to continue the learning process”, said Zumra. “The conflict … it affects everyone”.

Devastation will cause ‘ larger crisis ‘

Then terror rippled across Awra Amba last year when a villager was kidnapped by unidentified armed men who demanded 1 million Ethiopian birr ($7, 900) for his return – a huge sum that the community has been unable to pay in full.

In the meantime, the community’s founder, Zumra Nuru, and his son have fled to Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. Locals say his son was also the target of an attempted abduction as armed men came searching for him one day – but he was out of town.

Chanie, the researcher, says the Amhara conflict will persist unless there is a significant turnaround in Abiy’s policy towards Fano and that they are given – as promised by the prime minister – genuine political representation.

Fano fought beside federal troops during the two-year conflict in Tigray, but in the aftermath, Amhara people from outside Abiy’s party, including Fano, were not included in negotiations that resulted in the Pretoria peace deal in November 2022.

The roots of Fano – an Amharic term meaning “freedom fighter” – date back to the grassroots forces that rose up against the Italian fascist occupiers of Ethiopia in the 1930s, but today it is a largely informal coalition of several volunteer militias in the region that has gained widespread popular support in its fight for Amhara interests.

“There is a lack of political representation of Amharas in Abiy’s ethnic federalism”, said Chanie.

“The prime minister and his government didn’t keep their promises. He has just conserved his power. He consolidated his power, so it’s just a one-man show”.

For now, the conflict rages on in Amhara.

A June 2024 report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights found that federal forces carried out torture, rape, extrajudicial executions and murders of civilians, and that Fano militias were responsible for killings of civilians, attacks on civilian objects and unlawful arrests. Some four million children are reportedly out of school due to the violence in the region.

“As we see in the Amhara, nothing has been resolved through military action. So we need a clear, serious conversation between political groups”, said Chanie. “If the conflict continues, the devastation will result in a larger crisis. State collapse could lead to a bigger risk of regional insecurity”.

In the meantime, the people of Awra Amba in the remote highlands of Ethiopia are dreaming of a peaceful resolution.

“We just want peace”, founder Zumra Nuru, now 76, told Al Jazeera at his current home in Addis Ababa. “We believe that all conflicts can be resolved with reasonable discussion and debate”.

It is not the first time that the community of Awra Amba has been caught up in political strife, he added.

In 1988, during the Derg regime, a communist military government that ruled Ethiopia for nearly two decades, they were accused of supporting the opposition and were forced to flee their land.

The villagers were able to return only in 1993, two years after the regime’s authoritarian time in power came to an end.

A ruling by Romania’s central election authority to disqualify pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu from running in May’s presidential election rerun has prompted protests.

In a detailed decision released late on Sunday, the election authority cited the court’s previous ruling as grounds for its decision, stating that Georgescu failed to adhere to ballot regulations.

The decision threatens to intensify a constitutional crisis in the NATO and European Union member state, as well as contributing to the increasingly shaky relations between Europe and the United States.

“It is inadmissible, when rerunning the election, to assert that the same individual meets the requirements to assume the presidency”, the authority said.

The disqualification decision prompted unrest in the capital Bucharest. Hundreds of Georgescu supporters gathered outside the election bureau on Sunday night, chanting “Thieves”! and “Traitors”!

Clashes erupted as protesters hurled rocks, overturned vehicles, and set rubbish bins ablaze. Riot police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

The disqualification comes after Romania’s constitutional court annulled the presidential election in December, citing allegations of Russian interference in Georgescu’s favour.

The cancelled vote has placed Romania at the centre of a deepening rift between the administration of United States President Donald Trump and European leaders over the meaning and protection of democratic values.

Trump administration figures have framed the court’s annulment of the December election as evidence of European governments stifling political dissent. European diplomats have voiced support for the independence of Romania’s judiciary.

Georgescu has leaned into the growing controversy, posting in English on X: “A direct blow to the heart of democracy worldwide! Europe is now a dictatorship, Romania is under tyranny”!

Sunday’s ruling was passed by a margin of 10 to four, with the election authority comprising supreme court judges and representatives of political parties.

However, the decision is not final and can be contested in the constitutional court.

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – Afiya’s* frail fingers pick at the loose threads of her worn dark-brown sweater. She sits at the edge of her bed in the rehabilitation ward of Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital in Indian-administered Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar.

As the faded and stained clothes hang loosely on her thin frame, and with down-cast eyes, she says: “I used to dream of flying high above the mountains, touching the blue sky as a flight attendant. Now, I am stuck in a nightmare, high on drugs, fighting for my life”.

Afiya, 24, is only one among thousands of people addicted to heroin in the disputed region where a growing epidemic of drug addiction is consuming young lives.

A 2022 study by the psychiatry department of the Government Medical College in Srinagar found that Kashmir had overtaken Punjab, the northwestern Indian state battling a drug crisis for decades, in the number of cases of narcotics use per capita.

In August 2023, an Indian Parliament report estimated that nearly 1.35 million of Kashmir’s 12 million people were drug users, suggesting a sharp rise from the nearly 350, 000 such users in the previous year as estimated in a survey by the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (IMHANS) at the Government Medical College, Srinagar.

The IMHANS survey also found that 90 percent of drug users in Kashmir were aged between 17 and 33.

SMHS, the hospital Afiya is in, attended to more than 41, 000 drug-related patients in 2023 – an average of one person brought in every 12 minutes, a 75 percent increase from the figure in 2021.

The surge in Kashmir’s drug cases was mainly fuelled by its proximity to the so-called “Golden Crescent”, a region covering parts of neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, where opium is grown on a large scale. Experts also say chronic unemployment – triggered by the region losing its partial autonomy in 2019, quickly followed by the COVID-19 pandemic – fuelled stress and despair, driving Kashmiri youth towards substance abuse.

As a result, says Dr Yasir Rather, a professor in charge of psychiatry at IMHANS, hospitals and treatment centres in the region are stretched. He said while addiction treatment facilities have been established across Kashmir since 2021, only a handful of hospitals have inpatient facilities for severe addiction patients like Afiya, who often require hospitalisation.

‘ It seemed harmless ‘

“You will get through this”, Afiya’s mother, Rabiya*, whispers to her daughter, brushing aside the damp hair from Aafiya’s face. She has just had a bath. Afiya’s father, Tabish*, sits on a chair in a corner, silently watching them.

Afiya barely listens to her mother’s reassuring words and seems more focused on repeatedly removing the blue blanket provided by the hospital to let some fresh air caress the deep, black wounds on her hands, legs and stomach, caused by the needle pricks in her veins from injecting heroin. The gaping wounds now ooze blood and a thick, yellow pus, as doctors warn she could infect her parents and attendants.

More than six years ago, Afiya was a bright high-school student dreaming of becoming a flight attendant. After passing her 12th grade with impressive 85 percent marks, she responded to a job advertisement posted by a leading private Indian airline.

“This isn’t the real me lying in this bed”, Afiya tells Al Jazeera. “I used to drive my car. I was a stylish woman known for my beautiful handwriting, intellect and strong communication skills. My quick memory made me stand out. I could recall details effortlessly, never missing a thing. I was independent and confident.

” But now, I lie here motionless, like a dead fish, as my siblings put it. Even they can’t ignore the smell that lingers around me. “

She says she was selected for the airline job and sent to New Delhi for training”. I stayed there for two months. It felt like a new beginning, a chance to fly, to escape. “

But her soaring dreams were dashed to the ground in August 2019 when the Indian government scrapped the special status of Kashmir and imposed a months-long security lockdown to discourage street protests against the shock move.

Thousands of people, including top politicians, were arrested and thrown in jail. Internet and other basic rights were also suspended, as New Delhi brought the region under its direct control for the first time in decades.

” The situation back home was grim. There was no communication with my family, no phones, no way to know if they were safe. I couldn’t stay in New Delhi any more, disconnected like that. I took a week’s leave and went home, “Afiya said.

As she left the capital with help from other Kashmiris, little did she know her journey as a flight attendant had ended even before it began.

” By the time the situation]in Kashmir] improved, roads opened up, and I could think of going back to New Delhi, five months had passed. In that period, I lost my dream job, and with it, I lost myself, “she says as her eyes well up.

” I applied for jobs in other airlines but nothing worked out. With every rejection, I started losing hope. Then COVID hit and jobs became even scarcer. Over time, I lost interest in working altogether – my mind just wasn’t in it any more. I didn’t feel like doing anything. “

Afiya says that with each passing month, her frustration turned into despair. She began to spend more time with her friends, seeking solace in their company.

” At first, we just talked about our struggles, “she says”. Then it started with small temptations, with little puffs of cannabis to deal with the tension. It seemed harmless. Then someone offered me a foil]of heroin]. I didn’t think twice. It felt euphoric. “

” The only thing that gave me peace was drugs – everything else felt like it was burning me from inside. “

‘ Ruthless hunger ‘

But the escape was short-lived, she says, and the cycle of dependence took over.

” The dream quickly turned into a nightmare. The euphoria faded and was replaced by a ruthless hunger, “she says as she describes the desperate measures and risks she began to take to find drugs.

” Once, I travelled 40km (25 miles) from Srinagar to south Kashmir’s Shopian district to meet a drug dealer. My friends were running out of stock and someone gave me his number. I called him directly to arrange the supply. He was a big dealer, and at that time, the only way to get what we needed.

“When I reached there, he introduced me to something called ‘ tichu ‘]local slang for injection]. He was the first person to introduce me to injecting drugs. He injected it into my belly right there in the car”, she says. “The rush was intense – it felt like heaven, but only for a moment”.

That moment of euphoria marked the beginning of her quick descent into deeper addiction.

“Heroin’s grip is merciless. It’s not just a drug, it becomes your life”, says Afiya. “I would stay up all night, coordinating with friends to make sure we had enough for the next day. It was exhausting, but the craving was stronger than all other kinds of pain”.

Heroin is the region’s most commonly used drug, with addicts spending thousands of rupees every month to buy it.

“Heroin has spread far and wide, and we are seeing a disturbingly high number of patients affected by it”, says IMHANS’s Rather.

The professor says he has noted a rise in substance abuse among women, attributing it to mental health struggles and unemployment.

“Before 2016, we rarely saw cases involving heroin. Most people used cannabis or other soft drugs. But heroin spreads like a virus, reaching everyone – men, women, even pregnant women”, he tells Al Jazeera. “Now, we see 300 to 400 patients daily, both new cases and follow-ups, and most involve heroin addiction”.

But why heroin?

“Because of its rapid and intense euphoric effects”, says Rather, “which many found more immediate and pleasurable compared to morphine”.

“It is easy to use, has higher potency, and the misconception that it was safer or more refined than other drugs only added to its appeal, despite its highly addictive nature”.

‘ Wired to seek one last shot ‘

For addicts like Afiya, who has been admitted to rehab five times so far, the fight against heroin is a daily and uphill battle.

“Every time I leave the hospital, my body pulls me back to the streets”, she says. “It’s like my brain is wired to seek one last shot”.

Afiya’s intentions to recover remain uncertain. She has frequently left the hospital during rehab to seek heroin, or asked other patients for it during her daily walk at the hospital.

“Drug addicts have a way of connecting with each other”, Rabiya, her mother, tells Al Jazeera. “I once saw her talking to a male patient in English and I realised she was asking him for drugs”.

Rabiya says she once found drugs hidden behind the flush in a women’s toilet. “I found the stash and flushed it, but she]Afiya] still managed to get it]heroin] again”, she says. “She knows how to manipulate the system to get what she wants”.

A nurse at the SHMS rehab revealed how patients often bribed the security guards. “They give them money or come up with excuses to leave, even while on medication”, says the nurse, requesting anonymity as she is not allowed to talk to the media. The female ward is near the hospital’s entrance – that too makes it easier for patients to slip out unnoticed, she says.

“It’s heartbreaking because we try to help, but some patients just find ways to leave”.

“She]Afiya] escaped one night and came back the next day, having spent hours with male patients who helped her get heroin”, says a security guard, who also did not wish to disclose his identity for fear of losing his job.

But Afiya remains defiant. “These medicines don’t bring the peace I get from a single shot of heroin”, she tells Al Jazeera, her hands trembling and her nails digging into the hospital bed.

The physical toll on her body due to addiction has been severe. Open wounds on her legs, arms and belly ooze blood. When Dr Mukhtar A Thakur, a plastic surgeon at SMHS, first examined her, he says he was shocked.

“She was unable to walk because of a deep wound on her private parts and a large scar on her thigh. She had serious health problems, including damaged veins and infected wounds. Her liver, kidneys and heart were also affected. She struggled with memory loss, anxiety and painful withdrawal symptoms, leaving her in a critical condition”, he says.

Afiya’s parents say bringing her to the rehab at SMHS was a desperate move. “To protect her and the family’s reputation, we told our relatives she was being treated for stomach issues and scars from an accident”, says Rabiya.

“No one marries a drug addict here”, she adds. “Our neighbours and relatives already have doubts. They notice her scars, her unstable appearance and the repeated hospital visits”.

Afiya’s father says he often hides his face in public, “unable to bear the shame”.

Health experts say seeking treatment for drug addiction remains a challenge for Kashmiri women as social stigma and cultural taboos keep many women in the shadows.

“Rehabilitation for women is often done secretly because families don’t want anyone to know, and in Kashmir, everybody knows everybody”, Dr Zoya Mir, a clinical psychologist who runs a clinic in Srinagar, tells Al Jazeera.

“Many wealthy families send their daughters to other states for treatment, while others either suffer in silence or delay treatment until it’s too late”, she says. “These women need compassion, not judgement. Only then can they begin to heal”.