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THREAD: Hello friends. So depending on your exposure to African news, you may or may not recognize the girl in the photo.
But with the Iran Hormuz deadlock, and global powers looking elsewhere for trade corridors, it is timely to know about her. Especially if you are American. Her story may (should!) become very relevant in the near future.
Her name is Ciham Ali Abdu and she is an American citizen.
She hasn't been seen or heard from since 2012.
Ciham was born in April 1997 in Los Angeles, California, to Eritrean parents.
She moved to Eritrea as a child when her father, Ali Abdu, became the Eritrea's Minister of Information in 2002. Under Eritrea's totalitarian regime, Ali Abdu was known for threatening critical voices and defending the regime's record. He was a feared man and anyone with remotely critical views risked jail by angering him.
A decade after becoming a powerful member of Eritrea's government, in November 2012, Ali Abdu had a falling out with President Isaias Afewerki. Over what exactly, we don't know.
He defected & applied for asylum in Australia. The news was groundbreaking in Eritrea, where his was a feared face for years.
President Isaias, who has ruled with a iron fist since Eritrea's independence in 1991, was reportedly livid.
A CPJ article on the minister's disappearance from 2012.
https://cpj.org/2012/12/where-is-eritrean-information-minister-ali-abdu/
Ali Abdu doesn't appear to have coordinated his defection with his family. Because weeks later, in December 2012, his daughter Ciham, then aged 15, tried to flee from Eritrea by crossing the border on foot into Sudan.
She was caught and taken into custody. She hasn't been seen since. Human rights orgs have slammed the US for the lack of urgency on her case.
The girl who dreamed of being a fashion designer, is paying the price for what Eritrea's President deems to be her father's betrayal.
Every few years, stories like this surface...either on the Dec 8 anniversary of her arrest, or on her birthday April 3.
But no new information has emerged. Her father, truly a coward, has disappeared into obscurity in Australia & had been silent ever since.
Eritrea is a country literally at the bottom of the RSF press freedom index (behind even North Korea). If you are made to disappear, you may never be seen again.
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