jemal countess

@SFRCdems I am a Washington DC based photojournalist who has been covering the war in Ethiopia for the past 16 months. When I am in DC I cover The Hill and am at the Capitol often. I am willing to meet to discuss my first hand experiences covering the war if you are open to it.

"It seems unlikely that the coming vote will meet those standards" - @ForeignAffairs regarding how impossible it is to have a free, fair and competitive election in Ethiopia right now. #NoElectionWhileBulletsFly End #AmharaGenocide foreignaffairs.com/ethiopia/war-e…

@OrthodoxyNews This is an extension of the #AmharaGenocide.

Reports indicated that 9 Orthodox ethnic Amharas were killed and 4 kidnapped in Arsi, Oromia region of Ethiopia. The same report stated that 2 more were killed and 8 kidnapped in recent days, bringing the total to 11 killed and 12 abducted by local armed groups and gov't forces.

Collaborating with cruelty: The Influencers Cashing in Ethiopian's blood money. There’s a new pattern emerging in Ethiopia that needs to be called out loudly and clearly. Every few weeks, a smiling social media “influencer” lands in Addis Ababa, camera rolling, voice full of wonder, singing praises about “Ethiopia’s transformation.” Pretty vlogs. Aesthetic shots. Glowing commentary about development and progress. But here’s what they’re NOT showing you. They’re not showing you the parents, actual mothers and fathers, who have taken their own lives because they could not bear watching their children go hungry. Not a metaphor. Not a statistic. Real human beings, broken by a cost of living so catastrophic that death felt more merciful than watching your child starve. They’re not showing you the Amhara region, where the regime has unleashed a war on its OWN citizens. Tens of thousands killed. Millions cut off from hospitals, clinics, any form of healthcare. Tens of millions of children sitting at home because their schools no longer exist in any meaningful way. A generation being buried educationally, physically, spiritually. This is not a political disagreement. This is documented, ongoing atrocity. And into this reality walk these influencers paid, by all accounts, extraordinarily well, to film the freshly painted boulevards of Addis Ababa and tell the world that Ethiopia is “thriving.” Let me ask the uncomfortable question nobody is asking them directly: Do you know where that money came from? Because a regime that has lost all genuine public support doesn’t just accidentally find hundreds of thousands of dollars to fly in foreign content creators. That money has a source. And that source is a government squeezing resources from a population already on its knees, redirecting funds that could feed children, reopen hospitals, rebuild schools, and handing it to people with ring lights and good Wi-Fi so they can manufacture legitimacy it cannot earn honestly. That is not sponsorship. That is blood money. You are not a travel creator having an adventure. You are a prop in a propaganda campaign. You are the smiling face placed in front of a curtain that hides mass suffering. Every “wow, this country is incredible!” you post is a brick in the wall the regime builds between the world’s attention and the people it is destroying. The cruelest part? The influencers will leave. They’ll board their flights, post their final reels, collect their payments, and go home to their comfortable lives. The Ethiopians they helped whitewash will still be there. Still hungry. Still grieving. Still dying. History has a long memory. Every journalist, academic, and ordinary person who smiled for authoritarian regimes while the bodies piled up history remembers them. Not as adventurers. Not as entrepreneurs. As collaborators. This is that moment. And you are making a choice. To every influencer being courted by this regime or already on its payroll: the suffering of Ethiopians is not your content opportunity. Their pain is not your aesthetic. And your reach does not make you powerful it makes you responsible. Correct it. Or own what you are. @IShowSpeedHQ @dylanpage910

The real Ethiopia the social media influencers are not showing you @Chriseldalewis @dom_lucre @jimmy_dore @TheAfricaReport @LemkinInstitute @AfricanHub_ @african_stream @SFRCdems @SABCNews @SABCNews_Radio @leralambs @tasetireloaded2 @mainlandafrica @dijoni @IamMzilikazi @ali_naka @cecild84 @DavidHundeyin @Joe_Bassey @OgbeniDemola

🚨 @AbiyAhmedAli 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐖𝐮𝐛𝐞’𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞-𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫-𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐣𝐚𝐫 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐤𝐨𝐫𝐚 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐚 Reports indicate that regime forces abducted several family members of Fano Melese Wube, a senior leader of the Nebelbal Division under @afnm_official Asaminew Command, including his three-year-old child, in Bolo Selassie Kebele of Minjar Shenkora Woreda. The abduction of civilians, including a three-year-old child, has been described as further evidence of the regime’s deeply rooted hostility and ongoing human rights abuses against innocent civilians. Sources stated that the incident occurred around 8:00 PM on May 22nd, 2026 in the Bekele Jimos (Abiyot Fre) neighborhood of Bolo Selassie Kebele, while regime defense forces were operating in nearby Bolo Giorgis Kebele. The civilians reportedly abducted during the operation were identified as: ▪️W/ro Alemshet Mengistu, wife of Fano Melese Wube ▪️Yohanan Melese, his three-year-old child ▪️Dagim Wube, his younger brother Local residents who spoke to Mereb Media stated that the abductions reflected what they described as the regime’s inability to confront Fano forces militarily, leading it to target innocent family members instead. Residents further characterized the detention of women and children as an act of terror demonstrating the regime’s deeply entrenched hostility toward the Amhara people. Under international law, the arrest or detention of family members of armed fighters solely due to their relationship with the combatants is prohibited and may constitute a violation of human rights and international humanitarian law. Such actions are considered collective punishment, which is explicitly forbidden under the Geneva Conventions.

The efforts of one of the last colonial imperialist projects in Africa as they weaponize the young and naive voices of globally recognized social media influencers. They are used to “convince and confuse” the world as to the true nature of the country. Concealing, deceiving and denying the continual genocidal actions of the government of Ethiopia. @Joe__Bassey @Its_ereko @leralambs @tasetireloaded2 @mainlandafrica @dijoni @IamMzilikazi @ali_naka @cecild84 @DavidHundeyin @Joe_Bassey @OgbeniDemola

“According to reports, the deceased victim was identified as Qes Alemayehu Shenkute, a priest affiliated with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The attack was carried out in the early morning hours by regime forces under the 112th Airborne Commando unit using a bladed weapon as the victim was heading to church for service. The incident occurred approximately 3-km from the woreda’s administration center of Shola-Gebeya. The killing is believed to be reprisal for defections of multiple military personnel the previous day (May 18th).”

Sheer Brilliance…..well written, well stated truth about a regime truly out of touch with reality, humanity and God.

Influencers visiting Ethiopia: don’t mistake VIP tours, luxury hotels, blocked roads, and curated hospitality for reality. Behind the smoke and mirrors are war, mass displacement, and a deepening human rights crisis. Ask hard questions. Don’t be used for propaganda.

I’ve just published “ The Ideological Failure of Contemporary Resistance Politics. One cannot reduce politics to the mere circulation of elites through elections every five years and call that liberation. Democracy cannot be reduced to procedural rituals emptied of social meaning. The existence of elections alone does not guarantee dignity, equality, justice, or freedom from exploitation… The tragedy of our era is that many people have been conditioned to believe that authoritarianism is inherently socialist or communist because Western ideological narratives spent decades equating left-wing politics with tyranny. Yet for much of Africa, the reality has been the exact opposite. We have largely been governed by authoritarian capitalist regimes. Regimes where political repression exists alongside economic systems controlled by tiny elites and foreign interests. Regimes where workers remain disposable, where public wealth is privatized, where extraction is normalized, and where inequality becomes institutionalized(…) Some activists oppose authoritarian governments because those governments nationalized resources previously monopolized by foreign corporations or domestic oligarchies. Some oppose regimes because they redistributed land concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority. Some oppose systems that attempted, however imperfectly or coercively, to reduce inequality and assert sovereignty over national wealth. This does not mean authoritarianism should be justified. Repression remains repression. The imprisonment of dissenters remains wrong regardless of ideological orientation. But it is intellectually dishonest to erase the ideological content of political struggles entirely and reduce every conflict to a simplistic binary between dictatorship and democracy. There are people fighting authoritarian regimes whose ultimate vision is the deepening of neoliberalism, the dismantling of labor protections, unrestricted privatization, and the expansion of corporate capture over society(…) The simple fact that someone opposes a dictator does not automatically make us allies. Because if the society they wish to build is one where wealth remains concentrated in the hands of a few, where workers are stripped of protections, where foreign extraction deepens, where human beings are reduced to labor inputs for global capital, then they are ultimately defending the same structures of domination we are resisting, merely under a different political form(…) A democracy that leaves the masses at the mercy of corporations and oligarchies while celebrating the formal existence of elections is morally hollow. This is why activists must recover ideological clarity. We must stop allowing international institutions to flatten every struggle into generic language about democracy promotion while erasing the material realities people are fighting for. We must ask harder questions. Democracy for whom? Freedom for whom? Development for whom? Who benefits from the economic order being defended? Who continues to suffer under it? Full article: @faridabemba/the-ideological-failure-of-contemporary-resistance-politics-7a80ff896acb" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">medium.com/@faridabemba/t…

After conquering the Zulu Kingdom, the British divided the Zulus into 13 subdivisions to weaken the Zulus’ ability to continue resisting against colonialism. The colonial powers in Africa recognized that unity was an asset in maintaining their domination over African people. This is still the case today.

Two international bodies, one verdict: #AmharaGenocide is active and escalating. @LemkinInstitute demands ICC referral for Abiy Ahmed. @omctorg rates Ethiopia “Very High Risk” on the Global Torture Index. Silence is complicity. #StopAmharaGenocide

@HOAAffairs Thank you brother, this is the beginning of the next level of sustained actions in the pursuit of justice for the Amhara people and all of Ethiopia.

Dear all: please consider getting a copy of @JemalCountess’s book. Jemal has spent years on the ground documenting atrocities committed by the #TPLF, Abiy’s forces, and the #OLF, often under extremely difficult conditions. I have already ordered two copies myself. It is not only an important historical record, but also a meaningful gift for anyone who genuinely wishes to understand the suffering, resilience, and lived experiences surrounding the Amhara pogroms. Grateful for journalists and documentarians who choose evidence over silence. Thank you. @ShebaPushStart @NeaminZeleke @AbrarSuleiman @AbiyuBerlie @made_in_addis @GTWTW_Now @NevarroNative @ze_gelila @jeffpropulsion @YilmaYada @AsqualTT @EmishawEskedar @MaedotmEthiopia @amharafan blurb.com/b/12871741-thi…

I thank you my Brother, and I appreciate your support through the years. There is more to be done and this is the tip of the iceberg. There is no stopping the pursuit of justice until liberty and justice are had by all of the oppressed and those suffering simply because of their ethnic identity.

Congratulations Letter Dear Jemal Countess, @JemalCountess It is with great admiration and respect that I extend my warmest congratulations on the publication of your powerful new book, This Was Once Your Home. As a dedicated photojournalist, you have once again demonstrated extraordinary courage and professionalism by turning your lens toward the truth that so many seek to silence. Your unwavering commitment to documenting and exposing the ongoing state-sponsored #AmharaGenocide in Ethiopia is both commendable and vital. Through your six reporting trips between December 2020 and April 2022, you have captured the harrowing reality of the war within a war-an ethnic cleansing campaign targeting the Amhara people solely because of their identity and faith. Your work stands as an essential historical record, preserving the dignity and suffering of the Amhara and Afar communities for the world to witness. In an era when truth is often suppressed, your voice and your images serve as a beacon of integrity and justice. This book is more than a collection of photographs; it is a testament to your professional excellence and moral conviction. It ensures that the plight of the Amhara people will not be forgotten and will continue to demand the international attention and accountability it so urgently deserves. To every Amhara and to all friends and allies of the Amhara people: I strongly encourage you to purchase a copy of This Was Once Your Home today. By supporting this important work, you honor the victims, amplify the truth, and stand in solidarity against injustice. The book is available here: blurb.com/b/12871741-thi… Jemal, thank you for your fearless journalism and for shining a light where darkness has been allowed to linger for far too long. Your contributions continue to inspire and strengthen our collective resolve. I look forward to seeing the impact of this book and your future endeavors. With deepest appreciation and solidarity, Sincerely, ኤልያስ (Elias) @Eliasyemariam I just placed my order. Thank you again, brother Jemal! blurb.com/b/12871741-thi…

⚠️ A new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has caused scores of deaths has a "very high lethality rate" and no vaccine nor specific treatment, the country's health minister warned Saturday. ➡️ u.afp.com/SReH

🚨 The @AbiyAhmedAli regime drone strikes targeted multiple locations, including a temporary detention site holding POWs (killing 13 captured soldiers), an EOTC religious school (killing four students), and Mahderemaryam Primary School where children were present.

The world’s foremost genocide authority (@LemkinInstitute) just issued Update 2 of its Active genocide Alert for the #Amhara people. #AmharaGenocide

This is why Africa’s pre-colonial history must be told accurately.

Five separate institutions, working from five separate methodologies, have arrived at the same conclusion about Ethiopia. Their numbers differ because they measure different gradations of the same catastrophe. Placed in sequence, they form something closer to a verdict than a report. The United Nations counts 16.4 million Ethiopians in humanitarian need. That figure spans displacement, malnutrition, collapsed incomes, and the slow erosion of basic services. It is the widest aperture available, and what it captures is enormous. FEWS NET, the food security monitoring network, works from a narrower frame. It tracks populations at Crisis level and worse, projects elevated hunger into the lean season, and has identified Emergency conditions in specific pockets of the country. Hunger, in its analytical vocabulary, is a forward-moving risk shaped by rainfall patterns, market prices, armed conflict, and whether aid actually arrives. Then comes a letter from the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, dated April 29 of this year, which tightens the focus to something immediate and operational. It warns that the emergency food pipeline is fracturing and that as many as 3.1 million acutely food insecure people may lose their support during the coming lean season. The cause, the letter makes clear, is not drought alone. It is funding cuts, procurement failures, and displacement that no one has resolved. Five sources. One direction. Meanwhile, Abiy Ahmed presents a country in ascent. Cameras follow new resorts rising from excavated terrain, destinations built while displacement camps fill nearby. Investment corridors open with ceremony. Industrial parks receive delegations. Officials speak about growth trajectories and export ambitions, and the image is curated with considerable effort and considerable resources. But confidence, genuine confidence, does not require daily television campaigns to sustain itself. It does not reach the language of extermination when a song is released. It does not describe political opponents as dirty crows or promise to squash them like lice. A government at ease with its own legitimacy does not panic when a musician captures the attention of an entire population and much of the world beyond it. The unrelenting propaganda that saturates Ethiopian state media was never designed to persuade. It was designed to intimidate, and for that purpose, it is remarkably transparent, because threaded through every broadcast meant to sell the administration's achievements is the unmistakable grammar of a government that views its own people as a threat to be managed rather than a public to be served. The ceremonies happen. The resorts get built. And in the same breath, officials promise annihilation. What exists alongside all of that, and what the cameras are not pointed at, is a rural economy under compounding pressure. Households are paying more for food and fuel than they were a year ago. Fertilizer costs have risen to the point where farmers plant less, which means yields fall, which means the next season begins already constrained. Conflict continues to restrict movement in parts of the country, cutting farmers off from both their land and the markets where they might sell what they grow. Displaced populations remain displaced. Aid coverage fluctuates with the availability of international funding. Each of these forces feeds the others. A government can build a road in the capital and still be unable to stabilize food access three hundred kilometers away. It can host foreign ministers and still depend on the World Food Programme to sustain people who have lost everything. It can publish growth statistics and still preside over households that have cut from three meals to two, and then from two to one, because prices moved faster than incomes did. The international reporting has begun to reflect this duality, though imperfectly. The broad humanitarian counts remain high. The technical forecasts continue to flag seasonal risk. The operational alerts point to specific, immediate vulnerabilities in the supply chain. And the global dashboards, which are calibrated to respond to the most acute spikes, have largely moved their attention elsewhere, to other emergencies that arrived more suddenly and with more visible drama. Ethiopia sits in what analysts call chronic crisis compression: the conditions are severe, the documentation is thorough, and the world's attention has rotated. What the data describes, in aggregate, is a country carrying a large, persistent burden with localized pockets of acute danger that intensify when the lean season arrives or when a funding shortfall breaks the pipeline. That pattern does not appear in one report. It appears across all of them, in different languages, from different vantage points, pointing at the same ground. The gap between the televised narrative and the measured conditions has grown wide enough that reading these sources together feels less like analysis and more like confrontation. The food systems are under strain. The markets are distorted. The livelihoods that would allow families to absorb shocks have been depleted by years of compounding pressure. And the reports, taken together, map a country where progress in one region does not reach another, where a ribbon-cutting in Addis Ababa does not fill a plate in Somali Region. The system requires consistency: stable prices, reliable access, uninterrupted aid delivery to places where recovery has not yet begun. Where that consistency is absent, pressure accumulates quietly, in the way that chronic crises always accumulate, beneath the threshold of breaking news, in the space between the photograph and what the photograph does not show. Sources: Action Against Hunger Global Hunger Hotspots 2026 actionagainsthunger.org/app/uploads/20… UN Global Humanitarian Overview 2026, At a Glance humanitarianaction.info/document/globa… FEWS NET Food Assistance Outlook Brief, January 2026 fews.net/global/food-as… U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ethiopia Letter, April 29, 2026 foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/… Global Peace Index Map visionofhumanity.org/maps/ @NeaminZeleke @TeshomeAbebe18 @MesfinMtegenu @dawit_giorgis @berhanenega @ShebaPushStart @Berhanu2006 @AndargachewTse2 @Jawar_Mohammed @AmbStesfamariam @SirakBahlbi @YonasBiru57 @TsedaleLemma @Tseday @AbiyAhmedAli @PMEthiopia @SandokanDebebe @MFAEthiopia @TayeAtske @EyobTolina @binalf7 @DanielKibret @Zemedeneh @BMLenjiso @AlMariam1 @realDonaldTrump @StephenM @SecRubio @US_SrAdvisorAF @TiborPNagyJr @CohenOnAfrica