Amhara region: voting “amid the fire”-Libération

AI Summary

Ethiopia is conducting elections amid ongoing armed insurgency in the Amhara region, raising concerns over violence, coercion, and voter disillusionment. The election is seen as consolidating Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's power despite this volatile security situation.

On June 1, Ethiopia heads to the polls in an election widely expected to cement Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s grip on power. But in the country’s second-most populous region, where an armed insurgency continues to simmer, voting will unfold in a climate of fear, coercion and deepening disillusionment. French daily Libération dispatched special correspondent Marco Simoncelli to Lalibela and other parts of the Amhara region for this report, published in the newspaper’s May 27 print edition. In Lalibela, in Ethiopia’s Amhara region in the northern highlands, dirt roads are being transformed, with sidewalks, roundabouts and stretches of asphalt appearing along… The post Amhara region: voting “amid the fire”-Libération appeared first on Ethiopia Observer.