Teklehaymanot G. Weldemichel

Yesterday was an inspiring day at @ki.se , where I had the privilege of being invited to deliver a keynote speech on the role of scholarship during the genocide in Tigray and to take part in engaging panel discussions on academic freedom and democracy.

"The UN system has collapsed, and securing a seat within this deteriorating institution (a seeming preoccupation by some of the leaders) does little to protect Africa from the injustices of old and new colonial dynamics being shaped around the continent."

Africa: Peace and development in the age of transactional geopolitics - Global Development Institute Blog By Teklehaymanot Weldemichel and Smith Ouma The African Union has long promoted the slogan “African solutions to African problems”. Yet recent developments across the continent suggest that this procl...

"For all intents and purposes, the United Nations has lost much of its influence, as its involvement and legitimacy have been progressively undermined."

African leaders, however, seem not to “read the room.”

blog.gdi.manchester.ac.uk/africa-peace...

"This afterlife manifests not through conquest, at least not yet, but through opaque investment agreements, peace accords, and diplomatic gestures. If left unchallenged, it threatens to consign Africa to another century of external domination."

In a new blog, my colleague Smith Ouma and I highlight that a new wave of colonialism—less overt than in the past yet equally insidious—is unfolding, one that may lock Africa into another centuries-long asymmetrical relationship with new imperial forces.

Peace is the Prize: Why this Year’s Nobel Award Should be the Last - World Peace Foundation Author Alex de Waal proposes that Nobel committee does not award the prize until world leaders get serious about peace.

In honor of today's announcement, Alex de Waal proposes that the Nobel committee does not award the Nobel Peace prize in 2026. Nor next year, nor the year after, not until world leaders get serious about peace. And that would not an unprecedented act.

Read more here: shorturl.at/DCwOg

Famine in Tigray: “we are dying by a silent war” - World Peace Foundation Report authors explain why recording events in Tigray contributes to a body of memory that resists denial and insists on accountability.

From 2020–2022 in #Tigray, war & blockades turned hunger into a weapon, creating a man-made #famine & #genocide. The dehumanization of Tigrayans & invisibility of their experiences were their own forms of violence. Naming & recording this is vital for #accountability.

Read more: shorturl.at/2uqW8

Famine in Tigray: Hunger and Humiliation - World Peace Foundation Famine in Tigray was not only about biological deprivation but also about humiliation and dehumanization, including Tigray's middle class.

Famine in Tigray: Hunger and Humiliation

Read the Memo here
worldpeacefoundation.org/publication/...

In a blog, Birhan & I reflect,
"Silence now risks normalizing the use of hunger as a political tool—not only in Ethiopia but in conflicts settings across the world. By naming and recording what happened in Tigray, we contribute to a body of memory that resists denial and insists on accountability."

Famine in Tigray: “we are dying by a silent war” - World Peace Foundation Report authors explain why recording events in Tigray contributes to a body of memory that resists denial and insists on accountability.

"Silence now risks normalizing the use of hunger as a political tool-not only in Ethiopia but in conflicts settings across the world. By naming and recording what happened in Tigray, we contribute to a body of memory that resists denial and insists on accountability."

Blog: bit.ly/48SMgkA

In a new article for @worldpeacefdtn.bsky.social, GDI's Teklehaymanot G. Weldemichel (@tekgw.bsky.social) writes about the silenced story of urban hunger that has accompanied Tigray's war, famine and genocide.

Read here: worldpeacefoundation.org/publication/...

The Continent 27 SEPTEMBER 2025 | ISSUE 215 15 INVESTIGATION The Djiboutian massacre Ethiopia won’t acknowledge Djibouti drones killed eight people on the other side of its border with Ethiopia. Djibouti claimed they were terrorists. Ethiopia said nothing. This investigation found that some of the dead were Ethiopians, revealing another episode in Addis’s tendency to let its neighbours kill its citizens with impunity. Crossing the line: Djibouti’s bombs landed inside Ethiopia, killing civilians – not armed fighters. zecharias zelalem On 30 January this year, a drone manned from Djibouti dropped a bomb on a funeral gathering in Siyaru, a remote, semi-arid village near the Ethiopia Djibouti border. As rescuers rushed in, a second bomb dropped. And then a third. At least eight people were killed, including three children. Several others were injured. Given the village’s remoteness, the incident might have gone unreported if graphic images of the dead hadn’t spread across Ethiopian social media. A statement from the Djibouti’s defence ministry said the drone struck rebel fighters from the Front for the

Restoration of Unity and Democracy (Frud), a Djiboutian political party with a military wing. It has been fighting for Afar interests in Djibouti since the 1990s. The Afar are a community split by the colonial border separating Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea. “Eight terrorists were neutralised on site,” said a Djibouti military statement. “Unfortunately, collateral damage among Djiboutian civilians in the area has been documented.” International media, including Voice of America, Agence France Presse, and Radio France Internationale reported this version of events. Now, new findings from an open In recovery: Mariam Mohammed Abdullah was injured in the drone strike. source investigation by The Continent reveal a different reality. The bombs landed inside Ethiopia, not in Djibouti, and civilians – not armed fighters – were killed. That distinction matters. It shows Ethiopia is once again tolerating a foreign military targeting its own citizens, as it did with Eritrea during the Tigray conflict. A transparent lie Even before the ink could dry on the Djiboutian military’s statement, The Addis Standard and human rights groups in Djibouti were emphatic that the strike had actually occurred inside Ethiopia’s Afar region. But Alexis Mohamed, an adviser to Djiboutian President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, rubbished these reports in now-deleted social media posts. The Continent got to work to figure out what really happened. Over the course of eight months, we collected eyewitness testimonies, interviewed human rights activists in Ethiopia and Djibouti, and examined images and footage from the strike. Our findings align with those of Djiboutian activists, who pinpointed Siyaru in Ethiopia’s Afar region as the site of the strike. The ammunition residue found on the night of the strike confirms the bomb was manufactured by Roketsan, a state run weapons manufacturer in Türkiye. Former US army explosives expert Trevor Ball identified t…

THREAD: this investigation took up over half my year, but it's here in @thecontinent.org:
A Djiboutian drone strike in January was depicted as a army operation targeting rebels. It was actually a massacre of civilians. The bloodshed & coverup implicating Ethiopia, Djibouti, France & Turkiye.
#OSINT

Growth-loving authoritarians are failing on their own terms In Asia, East Africa and the Gulf leaders now face an unpleasant choice

The economist just cited my Master's Thesis (!) on developmental authoritarianism in this piece: www.economist.com/finance-and-...

How unexploded bombs cause environmental damage – and why climate change exacerbates the problem One of the main ways conflict leads to environmental harm is by leaving behind unexploded weapons and ammunition.

In this post @sndeall.bsky.social joins the dots between #MineAction #FoodSecurity and #ClimateChange - it's vital that we continue to reassess the risks posed by explosive remnants of war in light of new understanding and environmental risks theconversation.com/how-unexplod...

Land grabbing through unlivability: Necro-scapes and slow violence in the expansion of conservation regimes in Tanzania - Felix Mantz, 2025 Land grabbing is a persistent and highly dynamic global phenomenon whereby people's power over territories are alienated through multiple and ever-changing...

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Tigray as a Death World: Frantz Fanon, colonialism, and the limits of liberation struggles Ethiopia’s relationship with its constituent peripheries and Tigray in particular can without any doubt be described as colonial—a peculiar example of internal colonialism, in the sense that it is not...

"The condition in Tigray today is such that the people are subjected to life-threatening circumstances that render them the “living dead,” trapped in a state of extreme precarity and exposed to various forms of premature death"
by @tekgw.bsky.social

tghat.com/2025/08/03/t...

Urgent Action Is Needed to Prevent Tigray from Sliding Back into War - IPI Global Observatory The current state of “no war no peace” in northern Ethiopia seems to be preserved only by the rainy season’s predictable afternoon showers and relatively chill air. Tigrayans are making anxious prepar...

My latest with the Global Observatory, on the need for urgent action in #Tigray: theglobalobservatory.org/2025/08/urge...

The Italian invasion of Abyssinia and the situation in Malta in 1936 Italy used chemical weapons against Ethiopian forces during its invasion of Abysinia. In fact, it used such weapons in the Battle of Shire (February 29-March 2, 1936), the Battle of Maychew (March 31)...

Tigray and much of what is today Northern Ethiopia was thoroughly destroyed and looted by the fascist army.

timesofmalta.com/article/The-...

1935 Daily Sketch front page reporting Italian forces attacking Adowa in Abyssinia Stock Photo - Alamy Download this stock image: 1935 Daily Sketch front page reporting Italian forces attacking Adowa in Abyssinia - E5GKJW from Alamy's library of millions of high resolution stock photos, illustrations a...

Check what Italy did to Adwa (in Tigray), the place its first invasion of Abyssinia in 1896 was reversed, during its re-invasion in 1936.
www.alamy.com/stock-photo-...

Yeah it's still very common to see Mussolini and Italian fascism depicted/considered as the "silly/pathetic inferior fascism" compared to Hitler/Nazi Germany.
Besides what happened domestically, the stuff Italian fascists did in Ethiopia and Yugoslavia is among the worst in the 1930s and 1940s!

Italy’s colonial past was as brutal “as anyone else’s”, from poison gas in Ethiopia to concentration camps in Yugoslavia.
Yet the nation hides behind the myth of the “good Italian.”
https://f.mtr.cool/hlmlhmwlqk

Tigray as a Death World: Frantz Fanon, colonialism, and the limits of liberation struggles Ethiopia’s relationship with its constituent peripheries and Tigray in particular can without any doubt be described as colonial—a peculiar example of internal colonialism, in the sense that it is not...

In a new article for TGHAT, Teklehaymanot G. Weldemichel (@tekgw.bsky.social) writes about the war in Tigray in the context of enduring internal colonialism in Ethiopia, drawing on insights from Frantz Fanon.

Read here: tghat.com/2025/08/03/t...

Tigray as a Death World: Frantz Fanon, colonialism, and the limits of liberation struggles Ethiopia’s relationship with its constituent peripheries and Tigray in particular can without any doubt be described as colonial—a peculiar example of internal colonialism, in the sense that it is not...

My latest on the poly-crisis in #Tigray;

“In his seminal work, The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon analyzes the complexities of anti-colonial struggle and the enduring structures of neocolonialism—structures strikingly similar, I argue, to those facing Tigray today.”

tghat.com/2025/08/03/t...

Much of it is done in African languages, but far from all. Then even the few progressive westerners that understand and care don't have the confidence to say, "shut up fascist" to an African fascist.

This is a dream piece I’ve been considering doing if it weren’t for all the teaching load and the firefight that the situation in #Tigray has been. Once the dust settles, I hope to contribute to such a writing. 👇🏻

Only fascism on issues legible to progressive movements in the west is criticized, making virulent, genocidal fascism completely undetected in these spaces unless it's related to these matters. That makes it easy for horrors like #TigrayGenocide to be testing grounds as @tekgw.bsky.social wrote.

Time Has Run Out: Mass Starvation in Gaza and the Global Imperative It is time for comprehensive, full-spectrum, sustainable, and coordinated humanitarian action. States globally must act without delay on that imperative.

Now @justsecurity.org

I join Alex de Waal (@worldpeacefdtn.bsky.social) to call on all states with any leverage at all over Israel to use it without delay to demand comprehensive, full-spectrum, sustainable, & coordinated humanitarian action.

Time has run out

www.justsecurity.org/117962/mass-...

Displacement & Survival in Tigray (Part 2) Duke Burbridge's analysis for HPN4Tigray

NEW REPORT 🧵
Displacement & Survival in Tigray

Today @hpn4tigray.bsky.social released the second report of our series. The first looked at displacement trends. This looks at how people are surviving. The primary source of data comes from IOM-DTM IDP site assessments.
/1
mailchi.mp/hpn4tigray/i...

Fascism is here.