By Muluken Tesfaw
As an Ethiopian human rights activist and journalist, I closely follow the number and specific cases of people detained, tortured, and/or killed by the Ethiopian government. Every day, affected individuals or those close to them inundate me with information of various sorts. As a journalist, it is part of my duty to verify the credibility and validity of all the information that I receive. This is a typical task that I have been performing throughout my activism journey.
In Dec 2016, a man from the city of Gondar contacted me to get assistance for his family and have their ordeal exposed to the wider audience. That man is the son of Mergeta Endesirachew, the Father whose whereabouts remained hidden for close to a quarter of a century.
Profile
Endesirachew (aka Amha) was born on May 1, 1947 in Debre Tabor, located within an Amhara Province in the north western part of Ethiopia. Endesirachew had attended the traditional Ethiopian Orthodox Church education and is one of the most educated scholars in the Church’s academic hierarchy. To mention some of his qualifications, he is a Mergeta (Church Professor/ Educator) of digua, zema, qine, and aquaquam that taught at various schools in Debre Tabor and Gondar. He is also a talented zema singer. Some of the melodies that he sang are reportedly difficult to teach. He has been credited for recording those complex sounds to pass on to subsequent generations.
He had served as the director of St. Paul Ethiopian Orthodox Church Institute where he taught Clergy History, Church Maths, and Zema (spiritual song) courses. He was also the head of the governmental organization, namely, the Rental Houses Administration.
Mergeta Endesirachew is the father of three daughters and four boys.
What happened?
On July 19, 1994, two Tigrigna speaking armed men with a vehicle came and abducted Mergeta Endesirachew while he was returning from his work place, the governmental Rental Houses Administration office. The men took him to Ras Gimb (an old palace in the city of Gondar) which has been used as an underground torture centre by the Ethiopian government. This incident occurred ten months after the September 1994 Grand Gondar Adebabay Eyesus Church mass-killing in which over 60 people were killed in the church compound by the soldiers of Tigrian People’s Libration Front (TPLF).
Endesirachew was subjected to torture at the Ras Gimb torture centre. He was accused of two ‘crimes’: providing treatment for a wounded former government soldier in altruism and participation in a meeting of a legally registered party called All Amhara People’s Organisation (AAPO). Endesirachew had confessed that he helped the wounded soldier because his religion obligated him to provide comfort to the needy. He tried to convince the interrogators that his actions did not constitute a crime.
The TPLF was aware that Endesirachew was one of the people that were highly respected by the society. Thus, the interrogators came up with the idea of a compromise that suited them. They asked him to work with them. He refused to do so and rejected the negotiation. Following his refusal, they inflicted torture on him. In a message that he sent to his wife, he mentioned that he was suffering from diarrhoea and urged her to pray for him every hour for his survival.
Below is the message he sent his family in a letter that mainly addressed his wife Nigist Teferra. The letter has some coded messages which are presumably understandable by the receiver and sender.
Translation from Amharic;
‘To Mrs Nigist Teferra, how are you doing? If you are alive, please send me any message in your handwriting for assurance of your survival. Do not forget to dispense some pocket money to the teacher [the messenger]. Do not forget what I have told you. Send Tirsit [their daughter] to Kassie Wallelign’s house in Keble 04. It is serious. This is Amha. Please pray for me very much, saying ‘our father in heaven’ every hour. God will hear you. It has become too difficult for me to carry on nowadays.
If possible, send me the small keys from the damaged lock box.
If you have given holly oil to the child (the smallest), go to the church you cherish and pray for me there every morning for 7 days.
As I have got diarrhoea, send me ORS [Diarrhoea treatment fluid]. If you do not get that, send me 3 Birr. But I don’t think you are alive. How is your allergy?’
The family of Mergeta Endesirachew received the last message from him. It stated that most of the inmates [all of whom were ethnic Amhara] were killed. Only a few survived. He said, ‘Most of the detainees were killed. I was waiting for my turn. Luckily, when it was my turn, a message to stop killing came from their leaders and I was able to survive….’
Since then, the whereabouts of Meregeta Endesirachew remained unknown. The names of the people that were killed at Ras Gimb were listed in 1994 and a few were released. But no one was able to speak about the whereabouts of this church scholar. As time went on, various speculations emerged.
Some believed that he was later killed, while others thought he got released and went on to live in the monasteries for heavenly life. However, his family members strongly believed that he is somewhere in one of the prison houses in the country. His children looked for him in prison houses from Gondar to Harar. They could not find him anywhere.
Twenty years later, the family came across a clue. They met a woman who returned from the city of Mekelle, capital of the region (Tigrai) that the ruling group hails from. The woman visited a relative of hers that was imprisoned in Mekelle at BADO SIDIST (literary means ‘null six’) detention centre. Her jailed relative told her that a well-educated church scholar originally from Debre Tabor has been an inmate in the prison house for decades. However, when the family asked her for details, she refrained from disclosing any more information. She feared the TPLF would retaliate and endanger her security if she did. In 2018, another Amhara man who has been detained for 16 years got released and confirmed that Mergeta Endesirachew was alive and in detention at the same prison house in the city of Mekelle.
The family of Mergeta Endesirachew are crying for justice for their father. Their father has been in solitary confinement since 1994. Incarcerated for about 24 years without charge for any crime. No one knows for sure what kind of physical and mental torture has been inflicted upon him and to what extent- particularly after the security people took him out of Gondar. The government of Ethiopia should release him unconditionally and provide compensation to him, although no amount of compensation can bring back his lost years or his health.
