Ethiopia’s Corridor Development Project Violates Housing Rights

Addisstandard news

Amnesty International has called on Ethiopia’s federal government to “immediately pause” the Corridor Development Project (CDP), citing what it described as “widespread forced evictions” in Addis Abeba and other areas, carried out without proper consultation, compensation, or legal safeguards.

In a report published on 14 April 2025, the rights group said its investigation found that at least 872 people were forcibly evicted from Bole and Lemi Kura sub-cities in Addis Abeba in November 2024, including 254 homeowners and 618 tenants, without prior adequate consultation, notice, or compensation. Amnesty said those affected included 114 children and 13 older people, none of whom reported receiving compensation.

Amnesty said these are forced evictions, “the removal of people against their will from their homes without legal protections.”

The CDP, officially approved by the Addis Abeba Executive Council in February 2024, is described by officials as an “urban transformation” initiative intended to “improve infrastructure, housing, and public spaces.” The first phase targeted central areas of the capital, while the second phase, covering 132 kilometers across eight corridors, was launched in October 2024.

Chaltu Sani, Urban and Infrastructure Minister, while presenting her office’s nine-month performance report on Monday, said the CDP has expanded to 63 cities and claimed the initiative is “transforming deteriorated neighborhoods and slums” into modern, livable spaces with “vehicle roads, pedestrian walkways, bicycle paths, electricity, and other service infrastructure.”

She recalled that “before the reform, 74 percent of urban areas” were in deteriorated condition, but said that through the CDP and other initiatives, “significant improvements” have been achieved. She also noted that urban green coverage has increased from 5 percent to 22 percent.

However, several previous Addis Standard reports, including a January 2025 article, noted that despite improvements like “streetlights” and “fountain displays,” the project has faced criticism from displaced residents and business owners. A bar and restaurant owner from Yerer Sefer told Addis Standard that five businesses, including a clinic, were removed, and he was given only “three days to pack.” He added that the replacement land is 150 square meters, down from 221, and that compensation has not yet been received.

In its April 2024 editorial Addis Standard argued that with nearly 60% of Ethiopians living in extreme poverty and a staggering $1 billion funding gap hampering emergency response efforts, a redirection of resources to save the lives of millions across the country could have been more effective than investment in urban beautification projects.

Similarly, Amnesty in its report said the “scale of forced evictions… is unprecedented in Ethiopia,” adding that “millions of residents in cities where the CDP is currently being implemented” now live in fear, uncertain whether they might also be displaced.

Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab, which analyzed satellite imagery from early November 2024 to February 2025, confirmed that at least 29 hectares of densely built-up areas in Bole and Lemi Kura underwent structural clearing. The group said this “correlates with testimonies provided by victims,” and that the land “remained empty” as of early February.

Amnesty said the evictions followed a public meeting in Addis Abeba attended by around 5,000 people, during which city officials allegedly informed residents that the area was needed for the CDP and that “they were committed to further consultations.”

A week after the meeting, Amnesty reported that city administration officials “went door-to-door telling people to leave their homes within three days,” warning that their houses would be demolished. All 47 households surveyed by Amnesty said their homes were demolished within 24 to 72 hours of receiving the oral notice.

Tefera, one of the evicted individuals cited in the report, said his home included multiple rooms he rented to support his extended family. He told Amnesty International that his children have dropped out of school because he cannot afford to pay their school fees.

Beyond material losses, Amnesty said the evictions have had a “ social and psychological impact.” In interviews, multiple respondents reported that their children are suffering from “mental health issues” and expressed a sense of abandonment by the government. One individual said, “We lost hope on the government,” while another stated, “Our social life is ruined. Life has also gotten expensive due to additional transport and house rent costs.”

Amnesty also reported that residents lost access to traditional welfare networks, including “Idir”—a form of community-based mutual support organization—as well as religious and women’s associations. “I am now evicted from my Idir,” one respondent said, adding that their children are “dealing with mental health challenges.”

Amnesty further stated that journalists who attempted to report on the CDP have faced “harassment” and “threats.” The organization linked these reports to broader concerns over “crackdowns against human rights organizations,” which it said have contributed to the “underreporting of human rights issues” related to the project.

Amnesty asserted that the government has “violated the evictees’ human rights” through three failures: “failure to hold meaningful consultations,” “failure to follow due process,” and “failure to provide alternative housing.”

“Evictions must be considered only as a last resort,” the group said, warning that without proper safeguards, they constitute a violation of rights, including the right to adequate housing, as enshrined in treaties Ethiopia has ratified such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Kampala Convention.

Amnesty said that without these safeguards, such actions amount to “forced evictions,” which are “prohibited under international law.”

The organization noted that in January 2025, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was reported in the media as saying that “15,000 evictees in Jimma town have not demanded compensation.” Amnesty criticized the remark, stating that “the government is obligated to provide compensation regardless of whether individuals request it.”

Amnesty stated Minister Chaltu Sani told parliament in January 2025 that “property demolition” was a key agenda item in a recent Prosperity Party Central Committee meeting and that the committee had “decided to halt” the demolitions.

Despite this, Amnesty said its findings — along with ongoing reports of evictions and lack of compensation — indicate that “recurrent human rights violations” are continuing under the CDP.

Amnesty reported sharing its preliminary findings with Ethiopian authorities on April 1 but said it had received no response at the time of publication.

Amnesty concluded by urging the Ethiopian federal government to “immediately stop forced evictions,” “temporarily suspend the CDP” until an independent investigation is conducted, and adopt safeguards to ensure evictions comply with international human rights standards.

Original source

In pursuit of a modern capital, Ethiopian leader razes history

One evening in late October last year, hundreds of concertgoers streamed into the Fendika Cultural Center, dressed to the nines for an evening out at one of the most iconic music venues in Ethiopia’s capital.

For decades, traditional music clubs called azmari bets lined the road beside Fendika. They were a glittering centerpiece of Addis Ababa nightlife. The smoke-filled pubs often hosted poet-musicians called azmaris, a kind of Ethiopian troubadour, and more recently, crackling Ethio-jazz groups as well.

Now Fendika was the last club standing. And beside the building, bulldozers were waiting.

Across Addis, a massive urban transformation is underway. In recent years, the government has flattened entire neighborhoods – including some of the city’s most historic – to make way for new skyscrapers, mega shopping centers, wider roads, and parks.

“Infrastructure and aesthetics attract wealth,” explained Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed last year, comparing Addis Ababa’s development to that of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. “They have magnetic power.”

But for the thousands of people across Addis whose houses and businesses have been destroyed, the campaign to build a 21st-century metropolis here often feels more like a vanity project than like an effort to make life better for its inhabitants.

“The endless beautification of the capital ... has made us strangers in our own land,” says Henok Abraham Tekeste, a taxi driver who was recently evicted from his home not far from Fendika.

An urban face-lift

For more than a decade, the roar of construction equipment has been a backdrop to life in Ethiopia’s capital. One of the first major projects was a Chinese-built light rail, which opened in 2015, followed by a new wing of the city’s airport and several parks also financed and constructed by the Chinese.

When Mr. Abiy took over in 2018, he embraced the image of environmentalist, pledging that Ethiopia would plant 50 billion new trees by 2026 and create parks – accessible only to paying customers – around the capital. In 2024, Ethiopia became the first country in the world to fully ban the import of combustion-engine cars to support the transition to electric vehicles, although only half the population has access to electricity.

Meanwhile, over the past year, he has accelerated the pace of Addis’ “Dubai-ification.” This past March, Mr. Abiy announced that for the first time, foreigners would be allowed to buy land in Ethiopia, a move expected to attract investors primarily from the Gulf.

Over the following month, the government razed nearly the entire neighborhood of Piassa – a historic Italian and Armenian enclave that was home to Ethiopia’s first cinema (dubbed by some locals “the house of the devil”), the country’s first modern pharmacy, and the earliest Italian coffee shops, which have become a mainstay in the city.

Meanwhile, on a hillside perched above Fendika, a massive palace complex for the prime minister was rising from the earth. Mr. Abiy himself bragged that construction would cost as much as $10 billion, for a property that would include his official residence, a luxury hotel and guesthouses for foreign dignitaries, and three human-made lakes.

At the same time, a transit initiative called the Addis Ababa Corridor Project was bulldozing neighborhoods in order to reduce congestion by creating wider streets and dedicated bus lanes.

“A randomly built mud house does not constitute a historical heritage,” Mr. Abiy said to explain the demolitions.

Mr. Abiy’s rapid-fire development projects, conducted without public consultation, calls into question “whose vision is shaping the city’s future,” argues Ethiopian architect Nahom Teklu in a message to the Monitor on the social platform X.

Fendika, the cultural center, has faced pressure for years to move off its increasingly valuable land. But the crisis came to a head last year, when the Addis government announced it planned to demolish the complex to build a luxury hotel.

By that point, Fendika had been around in one form or another since the early 1990s, and had developed an international reputation for showcasing the diversity of traditional Ethiopian music. Its current owner, dancer Melaku Belay, got his start at Fendika in the late ’90s, when he was a teenager living on the streets. The club’s owner let him sleep under the bar, and he danced for tips during performances by azmari musicians.

In 2023, Mr. Belay and a group of Western diplomats who were fans of the center lobbied the government to stop its demolition. They won a reprieve, but it proved brief.

The end of Kazanchis

This past September, the government began delivering eviction notices across Kazanchis, the historically-Italian-neighborhood-turned-business-district where Fendika is located. Few places better illustrated the city’s current crossroads: Hip cafés serving lattes to diplomats and businesspeople stood beside outdoor stalls where vendors still roasted and sold traditional Ethiopian coffee to passersby.

Addis Ababa’s mayor, Adanech Abiebie, said the demolition of the old sections of Kazanchis, would “enhance the beauty and cleanliness of the capital, making it a comfortable and attractive place for its residents.”

Azeb Tadesse, a grandmother who had lived in Kazanchis for three decades, was given three days to vacate the property she says she has owned for many years. The warning was delivered with a coded message scrawled in red paint across her door.

Ms. Tadesse says she was warned that if she protested the eviction, she risked being accused of being against development. So she reluctantly moved into her sister’s housing unit in the suburbs. Now, she says, she feels like a “destitute refugee in my old age.”

Another former resident, Ayda Gugsa, now stays in a rundown two-bedroom rental unit on the outskirts of the city. She says she mourns the ease of life in Kazanchis.

“Where we are staying at the moment has no electricity, no functioning educational institutions for the children, and I am far from where I work,” she says.

Meanwhile, on Oct. 23, two days after Fendika’s final concert, excavators’ metal claws punched through the center’s roof.

But a few days later, Mr. Belay emerged on Fendika’s social media pages with an announcement. The government had given the center permission to rebuild – as long as they constructed a 20-story tower to match the other high-rises that would soon replace the neighborhood’s flattened homes and businesses.

This is “certainly not our first choice,” wrote Mr. Belay on a GoFundMe page to support the reconstruction, “but it is the government’s mandate if we are to keep Fendika’s location.”

In the meantime, he explained that Fendika would give concerts at a nearby venue that had survived Kazanchis’ demolition, the Addis Ababa Hyatt.

Original source

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