He’s collecting donations for the ongoing construction of a massive hydroelectric dam along the Nile River, which will help bring electricity to a country where more than half the population still lacks it. The pandemic will not last forever, Mohamed said, and neither will the political challenges that have led to recent violence and accusations of human rights abuses in the northern regions of one of the world’s oldest nations.
In fact, he said, many Ethiopians in Minnesota are applying for visas to return home “and invest in their country.”
Mohamed may not exactly be an impartial voice — as Ethiopia’s consul general in Minnesota, he’s a direct link from the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to Ethiopians throughout the Midwest. But the foreign consulate office he oversees from the Court International Building near Raymond and University avenues in St. Paul has experienced an uptick in reverse migrations.
“The trend is not migrating (to the U.S.), but going back,” said Mohamed.
The only other Ethiopian consulates and embassies in the U.S. are in Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., making his St. Paul office the face of the Ethiopian government for everything in between. Based on U.S. Census counts, the International Institute of Minnesota estimates upward of 13,000 Ethiopians living in Minnesota, the majority of them ethnic Oromo, though the community believes numbers could exceed 40,000.
Before arriving in Minnesota in July, Mohamed served as the former Ethiopian consul general in Djibouti and, before that, held a variety of roles in Ethiopian government, including that of national finance minister. His four-year assignment in St. Paul has already introduced him to Midwest winters — Djibouti was a land of triple-digit heat — and crisis control during a global outbreak.
To help Ethiopia weather the COVID-19 storm, the consulate raised about $152,000 in donations from Ethiopians throughout the Midwest, as well as in-kind donations of personal protective equipment. When it comes to the pandemic, “the country,” Mohamed acknowledged, “was not prepared for that.”
Some good years, and a difficult 2020
There’s been plenty of other turbulence in Ethiopia beyond COVID. Some liken tribal conflict in the northern farmlands to the experience of the U.S. pre-Civil War. In late June, an unknown assailant shot and killed acclaimed Oromo singer Hachalu Hundessa in the capital city, Addis Ababa, setting off violent riots…
Read More: Ethiopia’s consul general in Minnesota says many heading back to Africa to