Mupenzi Nkera spent all his life as a refugee. As a child, he was forced to leave his homeland of Congo when the civil war broke out. Today, Mupenzi is 24 years old and lives in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. It's a place he never thought would end. He's not doing too bad: he has a little apartment and a job fixing TVs. He could easily stay here. But if it depended on Mupenzi, he would continue his journey. Ethiopia - a scale for most There are 68.5 million refugees around the world, more than ever before. Most of them never get to Europe or some other stable region. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that 85% of them end up finding refuge in developing countries that are neither prosperous nor crisis-proof. One such country is Ethiopia, a poor place in an even poorer neighborhood. It is home to nearly a million refugees, with almost no other country in Africa having so many people. They come from Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan, and for most of those arriving here, Ethiopia is only for one stopover. They want to continue their journey to the west, to Europe. And, ultimately, the number of people who will actually settle in the Mediterranean depends on Ethiopia's ability to integrate them. Mupenzi has lived in Addis Ababa for two years but finds it impossible to learn the Amharic, the national language. When he talks about the Congo, he does it in English. He says almost apologizing that he forgot French during his years as a refugee. Mupenzi is a small man, so polite that he bows when he shakes his hand. He really wants to tell his story, but he is already bursting into tears for the second sentence. "They shot my mother," he says. "The enemies came at night and killed her." Mupenzi does not even know who these enemies were, though he presumes they belonged to an enemy clan. "Run!" his mother had screamed. He was 11 at the time. He heard the shots as he fled through the darkness with his father. A safe but difficult life A few months later, Mupenzi's father was also killed - and again, he is not sure who did it. Mupenzi fled along with his brother - first to Uganda and then to Kenya. In 2010, after four years of flight, they arrived in Ethiopia, where he and his brother were taken to a camp, as with almost all the refugees here. A total of more than 900,000 people live in the camps, located at the borders. They are run by the UNHCR in conjunction with the Ethiopian government. Several people live in each tent and are provided with necessities like medicines, drinking water and a place to sleep. Food rations, which include a bag of rice, flour and an oil can, are distributed weekly. Hundreds of thousands of people spend their days searching for firewood, and at night the air is filled with the smoke of tens of thousands of fires. Mopani and his brother stayed here for seven years until they were allowed to leave the camp in 2017 and they have been living in Addis Ababa ever since. Mupenzi says he is happy to be here - the Ethiopians welcomed him and he feels safe. But, he adds, "life is difficult here too." He has very little money and no chance of getting an education. Every Sunday, he prays for a better future. "God willing," says Mupenzi, folding his hands as if he were praying, "I'm going to Europe, maybe to Scandinavia." Working and Living Outside Camps "This dream of the West is the biggest obstacle to integration," says Mahlet Kinfe. "No one can build a new life in Ethiopia if they are just waiting to move on." Mahlet works for ZOA, a Dutch NGO that offers integration and training courses for refugees. About 90% of the refugees still live in the camps and are barely involved in daily life in Ethiopia. But this is about to change. In January, the country's parliament passed a new law that will allow refugees to live and work outside camps in the future. This law is considered one of the most progressive in Africa, but it also means that Ethiopia could comprise almost one million people. "It's an almost impossible task," says Mahlet. If it should be easy for anyone to establish a new home in Ethiopia, that person should be Samar Murat. She escaped from Yemen to Addis Ababa four years ago. Samar is 23, a young woman with a headscarf sitting in her chair, a small purse in her lap. She is also half Ethiopian. She speaks perfect Amharic and her family lives in the Ethiopian capital. But Samar says she does not want to stay here either. His new life is poorer and harder than in Yemen before the war. Samar grew up in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. "We had a good house, a garden, each of us had our own room." She says her father took care of everything. When the first bombs fell, he also made sure the family left the country. At night he would gather his wife and children and take them to the sea, where a boat was waiting to take them to Djibouti. "When my father saw it," Samar says, "he protested." It seemed too small and disorganized for him. But at that very moment, the projectiles hit only a few miles away and the flames shot up. Samar and his family had no choice but to entrust their lives to the boat and the traffickers. Refugees on their own Samar's family never had to sleep in a camp - their Ethiopian relatives provided guarantees for them. But his father could not work in the country and the family was assigned to a kind of social housing. Samar did not go to school any more, and at some point his father returned to Yemen. His mother rarely left the apartment. Samar was now taking care of his younger brothers. She did group trauma therapy at the ZOA and also learned how to sew there. She says she would like to be a designer in the West, preferably in Canada. "I heard that the Muslims are welcome there," she says. It is difficult for her to really say why she sees no future in Ethiopia. It is safer here than in Yemen, but the truth is that Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world. "Many people in Europe believe that Ethiopia is a stable country," says René Vlug, director of ZOA. The economy is booming, the skyscrapers are rising in the capital and the new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, is considered by many as a type of African Obama. But progress was mostly achieved in the capital. "Most of the areas, especially the border regions, are poor and remote," says Vlug. In addition, there is the fact that ethnic tensions are increasing across the country. The Amhara, Oromo, Tigray and Somali regions are struggling for greater power and, in the case of Oromo, even for their own state. There are already more than 3 million people living in Ethiopia who have lost their homes as a result of the conflicts in their regions. These internally displaced persons (IDPs) are refugees in their own country and no country in the world has more displaced than Ethiopia. Their situation could be further aggravated by the influx of refugees from neighboring countries. "Many refugees, especially those from Eritrea and Somalia, belong to ethnic groups that are also present in Ethiopia," says Vlug. "When more and more of them come, they change the balance of power." & # 39; Trump does not want Muslims & # 39; "I do not care who belongs to which ethnic group," says Nabiha Abdi, who is a refugee. With her aviator goggles and black lace hijab, she appears to be an actress in an Arab novel. She is only 23, but speaks eloquently. She spent the first 13 years of her life behind the walls of her parents' home because a war was taking place outside. Nabiha grew up in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. One night, 10 years ago, his father came home and said, "Pack everything, we're leaving the country." The family spent three days hidden among the goods transported by a large truck. "It was dark, we were all scared," says Nabiha. The truck was stopped and checked three times, but they were never caught. Then they came to Ethiopia. The Abdis are living in the Little Somalia neighborhood of Addis Ababa. But Nabiha's friends are all Ethiopians. "I do not want to have anything to do with the Somalis anymore," she says, gesturing as if she's throwing something in the trash. She has a seven-month-old son from a failed relationship and Nabiha hopes to give him a better life someday. That's why she wants to leave. She has applied five times for a visa to travel to the United States, "but Trump does not want Muslims." She says she'll keep trying anyway. "It'll work someday." This piece is part of the Global Societies series. The project is run for three years and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.What is the Global Societies series? The Global Societies series involves reporters reporting from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe on injustices in a globalized world, social challenges and sustainable development. Resources, reviews, photo essays, videos and podcasts will be displayed in the Global Societies section of douma-bank.ovh International. The project is initially planned to run for three years and receives financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Does the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have editorial influence? No. The foundation has no influence on the stories and other elements that appear in the series. Do other media have similar projects? Yes. Great European media such as the Guardian and The Country have similar sections on their websites - called "Global Development" and "Future Planet," respectively - which are also funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Has DER douma-bank.ovh produced similar projects in the past? In recent years, DER Spiegel has completed two projects with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the European Journalism Center (EJC): Expedition BeyondTomorrow on Global Sustainability Targets and The New Arrivals Refugee Journalists Project. which resulted in several award-winning features. Where can I find all stories and elements published as part of the Global Societies project? All pieces of Global Societies will be published in the Global Societies section of the douma-bank.ovh International website.
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