The Conflict

The Conflict Ethiopia is one of the countries located in the East part of Africa that has been affected by war several times. In fact, lots of disasters have been occurred in this country such us, starvation, spreading of HIV-AIDS, and especially wars. All those disasters have caused to the country highly economy crises. The Ethiopia and Eritrea war was one of the hugest disasters in our generation affecting parents and children, including some member of my family. This terrible war caused many people to lose their life and properties, split families and parents, and forced many children to be homeless. During the war many Eritrean were forced to leave Ethiopia; as a result, they were exposed to lose their life and the properties that they had in Ethiopia. No long time ago Eritrea was part of Ethiopia. After they got their independence many Eritreans were still settled down in Ethiopia and at the same time many Ethiopians used to live in Eritrea. However, when the war began people from both countries were strongly segregated. One of my uncles was evicted because of his Eritrean wife. When the Ethiopian police men forced to leave Eritrean, they didn’t give them enough time to sell their stuff. Some of them had to leave their house for their neighbors. In the capital city Addis Ababa, many jewelry stores were owned by Eritrean, but because of this war they had been selling gold for low price. Most of them didn’t have money on their hand to travel, so they had to pass through the desert and that caused many people to lose their life. Another effect this war brought was the separation of families, marriages, and children from their parents. When Eritrea was part of Ethiopia, many people from both countries had married each other. As a result, there were mixed marriages. However, when the Ethiopian government forced them to leave the country, they didn’t really care if they had Ethiopian husband or wife or if they had children. The Ethiopian police was just came and took the Eritrean one away from their family. Azeb was a woman I knew who had an Eritrean husband and suddenly Ethiopian policemen arrived to their house and pushed her husband into the car to send him to Eritrea. Azeb and her kids were crying aloud begging them not to take him; they didn’t even allow them to give him good bye kiss. I will never forget their sad face with broken hearts. They were just screaming helplessly. My childhood friend Lemlem, was another person I knew who lived in the town where I used to live. One day I had been told that she and her family had been taken during the night. Since then, I have never heard anything about her. Even after I moved to the United States, I was searching for her on Facebook and asking Eritrean friends just in case they know her back in Eritrea, but I was unsuccessful. Finally, this terrible war hit many of our children. Because of this conflict many kids were helpless and exposed to be without the protection and love from their parents. A lot of kids became homeless because of this confrontation. One day, months after the war, I met a kid in Addis Ababa. He was a skinny and sad kid, about eleven years old, who was living on the street. I was curious about his situation and I followed him. I saw him asking for change to everyone who passed by the street. I was so eager to know what made him to be homeless and I approached him to ask some questions. As he told me, his mother had a restaurant in Eritrea, and during the war she was doing her business there. After the government closed the border, she stayed in Eritrea and left him with his grandparents in Ethiopia. She tried in many ways to get her child, but she couldn’t come back and after a while, both grandparents passed away. By begging for money, he was trying to have something to eat to survive everyday. I felt terrible, and I realized that this war provoked many children to become orphans.

This war affected each of us who lived in the country at that time. Its consequences are still alive in many of the people living on both sides of this borderline. It affected the childhood of many young, the love of many adults, the unity and harmony of many families. As a consequence, many youth died at a very early age by going to fight this war. Sometimes all the brothers from one family got killed. A lot of children had to grow up without one or both of their parents. It was almost losing everything, losing many, losing good people, and losing children future. I wish the two countries had reached on some of agreement before all those innocent people suffered or lost their lives. Hopefully to know about the terrible consequences of this war, may lead governments to look for better ways to fix their problems.