Security
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Travel Information On Security & Safety For Visitors In Ethiopia
The exception to this is in remoter areas of the country. Notably, there were a couple of occurrences in the Danakil - a lowland part of Ethiopia that is unlike the highlands in every way. You can read from authors like Wilfred Thesiger about Afar people (The Danakil Diary: Journeys through Abyssinia) and their “ferocity and intolerance of outsiders, once accompanied by a habit of cutting off the testicles of any foreigner found in their territory,” as described in the Irish Times article. There was a kidnapping in 2007, a deadly ambush in 2012, and then possibly a mistaken shooting in 2017. More recently there have been several, as yet unexplained, shootings in the Mursi lands in the extreme SW of the country (see below on the Omo Valley).
I developed this page not to scare off prospective visitors, but to give sound, fact-based advice (where I can) and use my judgement as to relative safety. Of course, no travel is without risk, and in fact, staying at home involves risk. Recently I was travelling with an Irish guy who had been living in Houston, Texas, and he felt Ethiopia was far safer than the streets of Houston. He is almost certainly correct; the chances of you getting shot in Ethiopia are so small in comparison with living in the USA. But sadly, travel advisories from our respective governments do not reflect the realities of life and are not always written based on statistical probabilities.
As a way to assess my own feelings about the safety of an area, I would think about whether I would travel there with my family or not. I would not want to advise any clients to travel somewhere I would not go with my own family.
