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Tigray is a state currently in confusion. It is not just wounded by war—it is directionless in its aftermath. The promises of recovery have collapsed into factional power plays, moral drift, and public despair. READ: https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/07/09/daring-the-untried-struggling-for-a-new-path-in-ethiopias-tigray-region/ on how prevailing post-war disillusionment could spark civic renewal

When Dr. Daniel Fentahun—a Bahir Dar gynecologist affectionately known as ‘Dr. Debol’ by his patients—was arrested in June for allegedly inciting healthcare strikes, his case became a flashpoint in Ethiopia’s growing standoff between medical professionals and the state. On one side are doctors raising alarm over low wages and unsafe conditions. READ: https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/07/11/when-healers-protest-ethics-rights-and-ethiopias-health-crisis/ on how a doctor’s strike became a national reckoning.

While the world’s gaze is fixed on the Middle East, another crisis is quietly brewing in the Horn of Africa—no less dangerous, yet largely ignored. Nearly two years after Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed the Pretoria Peace Agreement to end a brutal war, the promise of peace is unraveling.
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/07/16/red-sea-reckonings-ethiopia-eritrea-and-the-unraveling-of-pretoria/ on how fragile deals, factional rivalries, and maritime ambitions deepen the Horn’s peril.

Tired of the noise? Get the news that matters. Step beyond the headlines with Ethiopia Insight—where independence meets integrity. No clickbait, no bias—just fearless journalism that digs deeper, asks harder questions, and delivers stories that empower your understanding of Ethiopia. Because the truth isn’t always on the surface.

The idea of Tigray’s independence—once whispered, now shouted—is rapidly becoming one of the most polarizing questions facing Tigrayans. The recent emergence of The Voice for Independent Tigray (VIT), a diaspora advocacy group, has thrown fuel onto already simmering debates. READ:
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/07/22/tigray-needs-democracy-before-secession/ on how independence without civil liberties is like starting a new nation in a prison—ask Eritreans and South Sudanese.

Ethiopia’s core challenge isn’t merely chronic poverty or political instability; it is a national obsession with time. READ:
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/02/times-hostage-how-ethiopias-past-is-strangling-its-present-and-future/ on how in a nation haunted by its history, memory binds the present and blinds the future.

In late November 2024, yet another video of a grisly murder of a defenceless young man surfaced, causing uproar on and offline in Ethiopia. This time the incident occurred in the village of Derra, a disputed mostly rural district in Oromia often claimed by ethnonationalists from neighbouring Amhara. Located along the border of Ethiopia’s two most-populous regions some 220 kilometres northeast of the capital Addis Ababa, Derra has long been a place of contention and violence. It’s one of 16 districts in Oromia’s North Shoa Zone with multiple villages inhabited predominantly by Amharas. READ:
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/11/mending-fences-addressing-ethiopias-internal-land-disputes/

In 2018, as Ethiopia entered a new chapter with the rise of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, he made a striking remark: “A poor country has no sovereignty.” At the time, many dismissed it as a throwaway line. But in hindsight, it was more revealing than we realized. It wasn’t just an observation—it was a warning.
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/11/ethiopias-sovereignty-illusion-who-really-pulls-the-strings/

Located along the border of Ethiopia’s two most-populous regions some 220 kilometres northeast of the capital Addis Ababa, Derra has long been a place of contention and violence. It’s one of 16 districts in Oromia’s North Shoa Zone with multiple villages inhabited predominantly by Amharas. The Derra problem is mirrored in various contested areas across Ethiopia in which unresolved territorial disputes breed violence. READ:
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/11/mending-fences-addressing-ethiopias-internal-land-disputes/

Disputes among communities over territories have been documented in Ethiopia for decades. But since the introduction of the country’s current ethnic federalist administrative arrangement in the early 1990s, and with it the structural politicization of ethnicity, tensions have increased. READ: https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/11/mending-fences-addressing-ethiopias-internal-land-disputes/

PART 2: In a complex and deep rooted issue like this, what's the way forward in mending fences and resolving territorial disputes in Ethiopia? READ: https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/11/mending-fences-addressing-ethiopias-internal-land-disputes/ on how the federal government has the responsibility and the duty to address territorial disputes. But a lack of trust for it among several affected communities hinders it and perpetuates cycles of violence. The authorities in Addis Ababa must move beyond short-term, self-interested political gains and exhibit genuine intent to resolve the issues.

Bound by necessity rather than trust, these former foes now walk a delicate line—one that could check Abiy Ahmed’s aggression or plunge the Horn into another devastating war. READ:
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/20/strategic-reversals-abiys-miscalculation-and-the-tigray-eritrea-realignment/ on how in the volatile arena of Horn of Africa geopolitics, Tigray has reemerged as the epicenter of a precarious power shift. The recent thawing of relations between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and Eritrea—whose regime waged a genocidal war against Tigrayans just three years ago—is no longer a political charade.

Political war has been taking its toll on Ethiopia for the past half decade, leading to efforts to bring together a deeply divided country. The lack of consensus over fundamental issues amongst Ethiopia’s diverse population is at the root of the chronic instability. READ:
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/28/ethiopias-national-dialogue-seeks-to-smooth-the-path-to-constitutional-reform/ on how changes to the ethnic federal system are on the cards—but they could worsen Ethiopia’s instability.

Ethiopia stands at a crossroads: Years of political strife, deep divisions, and a constitution that fuels debate. Can unity rise from the cracks of federalism and identity? READ: https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/28/ethiopias-national-dialogue-seeks-to-smooth-the-path-to-constitutional-reform/

The Afar-Somali land disputes represent a deeply entrenched and recurring conflict in Ethiopia, marked by a cycle of violence, short-lived peace agreements, and fundamental disagreements over territorial claims. The increasing formalization and intensity of the clashes, coupled with the federal government's perceived lack of consistent neutrality – influenced by shifting geopolitical priorities – pose significant challenges to achieving a lasting resolution. Any durable solution would need to address the core territorial claims in a manner perceived as legitimate and impartial by both sides, a task made more complex by the evolving strategic importance of these regions to the federal center. READ: https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/08/11/mending-fences-addressing-ethiopias-internal-land-disputes/

Narratives decide whose pain we see and whose we erase. A film about a drone strike left me with a knot in my chest, not because of the victim, but because of the drone operator. Later I realized the unsettling truth: I had been guided into feeling more for the man who killed, than for the woman who died. READ:
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/09/22/weaponizing-empathy-the-battle-for-hearts-in-ethiopias-wars/

Faith in Ethiopia under Abiy is not benign. It has been weaponized into an ideological scaffolding of authoritarianism, war, and systemic breakdown. Christian nationalism and prosperity gospel are not private convictions; they are public ideologies that have legitimated one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century. READ: https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/09/26/when-faith-fuels-fire-ethiopias-prosperity-mirage-and-the-politics-of-sanctified-violence/

A symbol of ambition, the dam reshapes power, pride, and peril. READ:
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/10/07/gerd-at-dawn-ethiopias-triumph-and-the-niles-uncertainty/ on how The GERD’s origins reflect decades of national perseverance, where ambition outlasted instability and scarcity.

Tigray’s survival depends on credible reform, not campaign rhetoric. READ:
https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2025/10/11/national-unity-for-survival-from-words-to-action/ on how unity cannot be conjured through slogans or rallies. It must be earned through reform and credible action. Without these, the campaign risks being perceived as a superficial gesture rather than a genuine call for solidarity.