Justice
The family of the missing 16-year-old girl in Adwa, Tigray region of Ethiopia, finally heard the heartbreaking news that she was killed and buried by her kidnappers. It was the head of police in Adwa, Tesfaye Amare, who confirmed the remains of Mahlet Teklay, who has been missing for more than three months now, exhumed from where it was buried. The police chief also said, according to a BBC Amharic report published on Wednesday, that the dress she was wearing and her shoe were found when her remains were exhumed. However, an examination is underway to definitively determine that the remains are that of the missing girl. She was kidnapped on March 19, 2024, in Adwa, central Tigray zone. She did not make it back home from school on that day. She was reportedly taking tutorial classes as part of her preparation for the grade 8 examination. She was kidnapped as going to school on a bajaj. According to BBC report, which cited her sister Million Teklay, the kidnappers called her father on the phone. After the teenage girl went missing, her sister told BBC Amharic “We have not heard her voice…our father asked them what they need and how he can give them. They replied ‘prepare to give what we ask you’, and we have been waiting for their phone call.” Later, the kidnappers phone the father using Mahlet’s phone and tell him “If you want to see your child alive, prepare three million birr.” Her family has been attempting to locate where she was kept after he was kidnapped and as to who the captors are but it was without success. The suspects who were in custody confessed to police that they killed and buried her. They led the police to the place where they buried her. From recent news reports, crime has been on the rise in the Tigray region of Ethiopia especially after the end of the two-year war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and Abiy Ahmed-led Federal government. Opposition parties operating in the region have been making news headlines recently expressing their worries about the security situation in the region. Getachew Reda, the region’s Interim President, this year described the security problem in the region as a dangerous one even for government officials. He said there are prisons in the region that are not known to the administration