By TESFA-ALEM TEKLE
MEKELLE, Tigray Region, Ethiopia — Yonas Teame, a humanitarian worker and human rights documenter who spent years recording alleged abuses against women and children in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, was taken from his home by armed men in Mekelle in June 2025, according to people familiar with his case.
His detention, followed by his reported escape from custody weeks later, ultimately forced him to leave Ethiopia, according to sources who spoke to The East African Daily.
Yonas was last seen at his home in Mekelle on June 20, 2025, when armed individuals took him away.
The identity and institutional affiliation of those who detained him have not been independently established.
For days, his family and colleagues were unable to establish where he was being held or what had happened to him.
The absence of information prompted fears that he could have been subjected to enforced disappearance.
According to sources familiar with the case, Yonas remained in detention until July 1, when he allegedly managed to secure his release and escape after his family and associates paid money to prison guards.
The East African Daily has not independently verified the payment or the circumstances surrounding his escape.
After his release, Yonas left Ethiopia, fearing further detention and possible retaliation over his human rights documentation work, the sources said.
His departure has deprived his family and colleagues of the opportunity to seek accountability through normal legal and institutional channels inside the country, while also highlighting the risks faced by people who document abuses in conflict-affected parts of Ethiopia.
Documenting abuses against women and children
For approximately three years before his detention, Yonas worked with the Yehiwet Birhan Church Development Organization and other humanitarian organizations, according to colleagues familiar with his professional activities.
His work focused particularly on documenting alleged violations against women and children in Tigray, including cases involving gender-based violence.
Colleagues say his records included testimonies and case histories from survivors, medical documentation and photographic and video material intended to preserve evidence of alleged abuses.
The nature of that work made the information he collected potentially sensitive.
Documenting allegations of conflict-related sexual violence can carry particular risks in a region where survivors have often faced stigma, limited access to services and fear of retaliation.
International investigations have previously documented widespread conflict-related sexual violence in Tigray.
The International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia reported that more than 10,000 survivors, primarily women and girls, sought care for sexual violence between November 2020 and July 2023.
The commission also reported that stigma, telecommunications disruptions and weaknesses in the health system contributed to delayed reporting and underreporting.
Against that background, the preservation of testimony, medical records and other evidence has become an important part of efforts to establish what happened to victims during and after the 2020–2022 war.
But human rights documentation can also expose those collecting the information to pressure from actors who fear scrutiny.
According to people familiar with Yonas’s work, he deliberately maintained a low public profile. He did not widely publicize his activities or present himself publicly as an activist.
Despite that caution, colleagues say he experienced repeated threats and pressure from individuals they associated with both regional and federal government structures.
Those allegations have not been independently established by The East African Daily, and the identities of the individuals allegedly responsible for the threats remain unclear.
A disappearance amid renewed political uncertainty
Yonas’s detention came at a particularly volatile moment in Tigray.
The region was still struggling with the political, humanitarian and security consequences of the 2020–2022 war when divisions within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) escalated in early 2025.
In March 2025, rival factions of the TPLF clashed politically and militarily, with a faction aligned with Debretsion Gebremichael taking control of several towns, including Adigrat. The crisis prompted the interim administration to appeal for federal intervention and raised fears that renewed conflict could undermine the Pretoria Agreement that ended the war.
The political crisis subsequently resulted in a change at the top of the regional administration.
On April 8, 2025, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appointed Tadesse Worede to lead Tigray’s interim administration, replacing Getachew Reda.
The move came amid heightened tensions between rival Tigrayan political factions and concerns over the possibility of renewed conflict involving Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The political uncertainty has created an increasingly complicated security environment in which competing political and armed actors exercise influence, while civilians, humanitarian workers and civil society actors face uncertainty over whom they can safely approach when abuses occur.
It is within this environment that Yonas’s disappearance took place.
The wider risks facing rights defenders
Yonas’s case also comes against a broader backdrop of pressure on independent voices in Ethiopia.
Human rights organizations have documented arbitrary detention, intimidation and restrictions against journalists, activists and civil society organizations in recent years.
Human Rights Watch has reported that Ethiopia’s civic space has narrowed and that journalists and media professionals have faced arbitrary arrests and intimidation. Amnesty International’s assessment of Ethiopia in 2025 similarly found continued restrictions on activists and human rights defenders, alongside arbitrary detention and harassment of journalists.
A December 2025 report by the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a partnership between FIDH and OMCT, documented 41 cases of attacks against human rights defenders in Ethiopia between 2020 and 2025, including arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearance, killings and exile.
The pattern is particularly significant in conflict-affected regions, where independent documentation can challenge competing narratives about abuses committed by state and non-state actors.
For Tigray, the problem is compounded by the legacy of the war.
Although the November 2022 Pretoria Agreement brought an end to large-scale fighting between the Ethiopian federal government and Tigrayan forces, serious human rights concerns have persisted.
Human Rights Watch has continued to document abuses in Tigray, including sexual violence and arbitrary detention, while noting that accountability for violations committed during the war remains limited.
The unresolved question of accountability makes independent documentation particularly important — and potentially dangerous.
From detention to exile
For Yonas, the consequences of his work appear to have extended beyond detention.
Following his reported escape on July 1, sources say he concluded that remaining in Ethiopia was too dangerous and left the country.
His case therefore illustrates, return back to Ethiopia could make him a subjet to retaliation including risk on his life or lengthy prison term under vage Ethiopia’s treason charge.
For journalists, humanitarian workers and human rights defenders, leaving the country may provide immediate physical safety, but it can also mean separation from family, loss of employment and the disruption of documentation networks built over years.
It can also create a new challenge for human rights investigations. Much of the evidence collected by people such as Yonas depends on access to survivors, medical facilities, local communities and witnesses. When documenters are forced to leave, those channels can become more difficult to maintain.
For survivors of gender-based violence, the consequences can be even more serious if trusted individuals who helped document their cases are no longer available to them.
Questions that remain unanswered
Several critical questions surrounding Yonas’s case remain unresolved.
Who ordered his arrest?
Who were the armed individuals who took him from his home?
Where was he held?
Under whose authority was he detained?
Why was he not publicly presented before a court, if he was formally arrested?
And why did authorities fail to provide information about his whereabouts to his family?
There are also unanswered questions about the allegations that money was paid to prison guards to facilitate his escape and whether any official investigation was opened into his detention.
The lack of clear answers leaves open the possibility that Yonas’s case was not an isolated incident but part of a wider pattern in which individuals involved in sensitive human rights work operate under threat.
At the same time, the absence of independently verified information means that allegations about the identity of his abductors, the authorities responsible and the motives behind his detention must be treated with caution.
Authorities asked to respond
The East African Daily contacted the relevant Tigray regional authorities and the Ethiopian federal government seeking clarification about Yonas Teame’s reported detention, the circumstances surrounding his disappearance and subsequent release, and whether any investigation was conducted into his case.
At the time of publication, no substantive response had been received.
The outlet remains open to publishing any response or clarification from the relevant authorities.
Yonas’s experience raises a broader question for Tigray and Ethiopia: what happens to those who document abuses when the people responsible for protecting them are themselves accused of being involved in intimidation or detention?
For a region still attempting to recover from one of Ethiopia’s most devastating conflicts, the answer will have consequences not only for human rights defenders, but also for survivors whose stories depend on independent documentation, preservation of evidence and the possibility of accountability.
