Anger, frustration as Ethiopians bury their dead

Anger, frustration as Ethiopians bury their dead
05 Nov 2005 15:15:41 GMT
Source: Reuters By David Mageria
ADDIS ABABA, Nov 5 (Reuters) - In a crowded, dingy room in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, women in traditional white veils sit on a wooden bench, crying uncontrollably. In a scene of grief replicated across the city, Felege Wolde Tsadik, 70, paces back and forth in front of her fellow mourners, clutching two black-and-white photographs and wailing. The two pictures announce a double tragedy for Felege, whose 18-year-old grandson Abyei Mulat was shot dead by police on Wednesday during almost a week of political unrest. Abyei was killed just two weeks after his father died of an illness, leaving Felege without a breadwinner. "I am as good as dead. How will I survive?" the sobbing woman asked Reuters. "I do not have anyone else to take care of me. Why should I live anymore?" Abyei -- described by friends and neighbours as gentle, humble and hardworking -- was a casual labourer and spent much of his meagre pay packet on caring for his grandmother. He was one of 46 killed so far in the violence, which broke out in the capital on Tuesday after opposition leaders accused Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of rigging his way back to power in an election last May.
Felege said the teenager was gunned down after he heard shooting near their home and went outside to investigate. She said the police had described him as a protester. "I pleaded with them to save him, but they pointed the gun at me," Felege said. "He was the only one I had." On Saturday, relatives and friends paid their last respects to Abyei before his bullet-riddled body was laid to rest in a graveyard behind the Urael Orthodox Church near his home. ANGER AND FRUSTRATION Women screamed, jumped up and down and beat their chests in sorrow as they viewed the corpse, which was left in the church's funeral room overnight because the smell of the corpse made it impossible to take home as tradition demands. There was consternation among mourners about the inability of the mortuary to preserve the body, but some suspected the extent of the wounds made such treatment extremely difficult. Elias Jemal Wolde, a family member who helped organise the burial, said the young man's chest had been ripped apart by gunfire.
"The body was spoilt. It was smelling ... We could not keep it in the house," he said. He accused government officials of trying to get the family to sign a statement that their boy was an opposition supporter and had been killed while protesting. He said they had refused, and eventually the officials relented and released the body. He said it was unlikely the family would sue the state for compensation because they were too poor to afford legal fees. The anger and frustration were clear outside the Menelik 2 hospital on Friday when more than 100 people queued to enter the mortuary in turns for the grim task of searching for loved ones. Critics of the government said the crackdown exposed Meles's authoritarian rule. But Information Minister Berhan Hailu laid the blame for the unrest squarely on the opposition's doorstep. "We are sorry for the deaths but the families should understand the reality of the situation," he told Reuters. "We are blaming the instigators of the violence. The police tried to minimise the damage. The government should not be blamed, it has tolerated a lot."