Red Terror

After some more birdwatching and an expedition in a double kayak with Sarah, we returned to Addis, crammed into a succession of hot minibuses which took us to Meskel Square. This was right next to a new museum which I had wanted to visit.

The Red Terror Museum opened in 2010 and aims to tell people about a time when Ethiopia was under the rule of the fascist Derg regime in the 1970s and 80s. The man who took us around had been imprisoned for 8 years and tortured, because he had been a student protesting about the lack of freedom under the regime.

Amnesty International claims that half a million people were killed between 1974 and 1991. These are pictures of a few of them. Many were buried in mass gravestone and the process of identifying their remains is still continuing.

What upset me was that while this was going on, I was blissfully unaware of it. I was also unaware that Mengistu is still in exile in Zimbabwe.

The guide said he hoped this would never happen again. Having now been to Auschwitz and Hiroshima, and D to the Rwanda Genocide museum, we have heard those words more than once. Still hoping for an end to Man's Inhumanity to Man.