The unrest has cast a shadow over Ethiopia, whose state-led industrial drive has created one of Africa’s fastest growing economies but whose government also faces criticism at home and abroad over its authoritarian approach to development.

• Ethiopia declared a state of emergency after more than a year of unrest in its Oromiya and Amhara regions, near the capital Addis Ababa, where protesters say the government has trampled on land and other political rights.
• Rights groups say more than 500 people have died in the violence. The government says the death toll is inflated.

HISTORIC FRUSTRATIONS

• Many people from Oromiya, a region at the heart of Ethiopia’s industrialization drive, accuse the state of seizing their land and offering meager compensation before selling it on to companies, often foreign investors, at inflated prices.
• They also say they struggle to find work, even when a new factory is sited on property they or their families once owned.
• Together the Oromos and Amharas make up more than half Ethiopia’s total population of 99 million people.
• The ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has been in power for a quarter of a century, is made up of four parties representing the main ethnic groups.
• But opponents say Tigrayans, a smaller ethnic group whose powerbase is in the north, are pulling the strings. The government dismisses such charges.

DO YOU KNOW ?
Capital: Addis Ababa
Currency: Ethiopian birr
Official language: Amharic
President: Mulatu Teshome
Prime Minister: Hailemariam Desalegn