Ethiopia, Addis Abeba Integrated Master Plan, Addis Abeba, Africa, Social Affairs

Analysis: Addis Abeba may never house its dispossessed, unsheltered inner-city dwellers

Slums may remain permanent fixture of Addis Abeba

Samuel Bogale

Addis Abeba, September 04/2017 – On left side in the middle of the long stretch from Arat Kilo Square (otherwise known as ‘Victory Square’) down to Mesqel Square, lays the age-old Menilik II Palace (The residence of the prime minister) and one of the most protected and secured places in the country.  On the other side of the same road, a large plot of land fenced with green and yellow corrugated iron lays idle. Covered by the fences is an area famously known as Fit Ber (Front Gate), where thousands of the city’s poor lived for as long as 50 years. It is where Ephrem Ayele, (who requested his name to be changed for fear of “repercussions” from his Kebele administrators), lives with his wife and two of his kids in a combined plastic and corrugated iron makeshift ‘house’.