May 10, 2000

DISAPPEARANCE UNIVERSITY STUDENT TEREFE EJERA

Repeatedly summoned and interrogated by the security police in Addis Abeba, fourth year university student TEREFE EJERA, has now disappeared after being detained, last week , by the government agents. The political science and international relations student was one of the hundreds of students who had gone to Bale to fight the forest fire. Government agents have been interrogating him on his possible involvement in an alleged conspiracy to blame the forest fire on the EPRDF government. In a related news, it is reported that secondary schools in western Ethiopia, from Ginche to Dembi Dolo ,remain closed while the government still holds scores of students and teachers in prison following the students protests (and students deaths in the hands of the police in Dembi Dolo, Nekemte and Ambo) over the alleged government neglect of the forest fire that ravaged Bale and Sidamo regions. While hundreds are reported jailed and detained in bad conditions in army and police training camps, a number of students and teachers have also been reported 'disappeared" and attempts by their kin to get an account from the police have been in vain.

SOCEPP