In anticipation of interest from Dubai-based entrepreneurs for prime land in Addis Ababa, the cash-starved government is changing legislation to allow foreigners to own properties in Ethiopia for the first time. The Addis Ababa Corridor Development project comes as the government is set to auction vast chunks of prime land to foreign investors with the financial means to set up modern hotels, real estate and waterparks, as part of Ethiopia’s plan to help beautify the old city of almost six million people.

The government aims to build wider streets that can accommodate bikes, pedestrian lanes and skyscrapers. For this, people living in some of the capital’s historic neighbourhoods stretching to the suburbs are being pushed out and their homes demolished.

The old Piassa neighbourhood, an Italian enclave with European architecture that once housed Armenian and Italian merchants, was preserved for many years as a heritage site. Now it has almost been gutted as part of the development project partly funded by the World Bank.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has launched several projects such as parks, lodges and a palace for his government since his inauguration in 2018.

Bulldozers signal forced displacement

Thousands have been displaced and many residents were given just a few days to leave their homes before bulldozers arrived. Only some were given accommodation inside partially finished government social housing apartments. The majority were promised land elsewhere and received little compensation, making them destitute in the fast-growing city.

The demolition has made us strangers in our city

Tigist Tadesse lived and worked in Piassa supporting her children. She had a stand on the main road, selling fried dishes near her two-room house. She was a returnee from Dubai, where she had been working as a domestic worker for four years. She was given three days to vacate her property before a bulldozer arrived and gutted the entire neighbourhood.

Tadesse was offered a one-room unit inside a partially completed apartment in an area far from Addis Ababa called Addis Alem that lacks basic amenities and opportunities.

“In Piassa, where I grew up and lived all my life, I was working and supporting my family. Where we are placed right now, while we have a roof over our heads, there are no services: no water, no electricity, and no school for our children and we cannot earn an income and operate a small business as before,” Tadesse tells The Africa Report.

“The demolition has destroyed our livelihoods and made us strangers in our city that is leaving many of us behind,” she adds.

The government estimates that more than 11,000 people have been displaced from Piassa alone as the demolition continues elsewhere in Addis Ababa.

Mega complex casts a long shadow

On a stretch of the old Armenian neighbourhood, in front of the new Adwa lies the future site of the symbol of the revitalisation of the city. The mega complex is expected to attract tourists with its museum, which has more paintings than historical artefacts. But its presence has also overshadowed much of the old housing complex within its proximity.

What is the point of being an entrepreneur, if all can be lost in the blink of an eye

Abraham Teklu, 35, had just taken ownership of a small complex inside one of the old homes, paying ETB4m (about $70,000) after selling his car and paying the previous owner selling fast food and coffee. He was given a few days to move out before bulldozers flattened his business, dashing his hope of becoming successful.

“What is the point of being an entrepreneur, if all can be lost in the blink of an eye, with little warning or financial compensation?”

For Addis Ababa-based architect Nahom Teklu: “The corridor development plan has a deficient reading of the realities related to the city’s existing sociocultural and socio-economic values.”

Foreign embassies asked to cede prime land

Foreign embassies have also been affected by the demolition project. Missions from Russia, Britain, Belgium and Kenya overlooking a new palace project in the Yeka Hills have been asked to cede substantial pieces of land to pave the way for the project.

“They gave us a few days to allow them to enter our property and take prime land from us. We protested to the local foreign ministry under the Vienna Convention. Still, they pretended to have little understanding of a document that Ethiopia is a signatory of and echoed the importance of the work. Little was achieved,” says a diplomat, asking not to be named.

With the monumental project affecting thousands of people, this development puts pressure on a government already at risk of defaulting on repaying loans to foreign lenders.

This is not the first time the Addis Ababa government has launched a large-scale demolition project of homes and business premises. In 2019, thousands of long-term residents in Addis Ababa suburbs Sebeta, Suluta and Galan were evicted and their homes flattened for the government’s 2017 master plan.

At the time, UN rapporteur on adequate housing, Leilani Farah, promised to investigate and called the project an “egregious violation of the human right to housing”.