The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on the 10th, stating that through the efforts of the Ethiopian Embassy in India, 121 Ethiopian citizens were rescued from armed elements in the fraud parks in northern Myanmar. Among them, 41 people returned to Addis Ababa on the evening of the 9th, and another 80 people returned on the day the statement was issued. This is the third time this year that Ethiopia has retrieved victims from the fraud parks in northern Myanmar. Two months ago, Ethiopia repatriated 32 victims from northern Myanmar who were in Thailand.
According to the briefing from the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these people were victims of transnational illegal intermediaries. Illegal intermediaries introduced Ethiopians to go to Southeast Asia to work as "high - paying customer service staff". After signing labor contracts, they were lured to the Myanmar border and forced to engage in telecom fraud work in the fraud parks. In the parks, they had to work up to 16 hours a day and were also beaten and threatened.
Previously, Shikur Naser, a civil engineer from Tora in central Ethiopia, told reporters that his college friend said there was a promising online job opportunity in Thailand. The job paid around $1,000 per month, which was 17 times higher than his salary as a math teacher in Ethiopia. To get this job, Shikur was asked to buy an air ticket to Thailand on his own and pay his friend who introduced the job to him in cryptocurrency. Just as the engineer thought he was going to become an IT white - collar worker, when he woke up after arriving in Bangkok, he found himself in the Myawaddy fraud park in Myanmar, across from Thailand.
Shikur claimed that he was severely beaten for failing to meet the fraud targets and was kidnapped by gunmen at Bangkok Airport when he tried to return home. Eventually, after his family raised $2,500, he was able to return to Ethiopia. According to Ethiopian media interviews with other victims who have returned home, during their time in the park, they were required to dress up as women to make calls and build relationships with men in South Asia and the Middle East, and finally defraud them of money. If they couldn't complete the tasks arranged by the park, they would be beaten and electrocuted as punishment every day.
At the end of last year, Ethiopian media estimated that about 3,000 Ethiopian citizens were in parks across Myanmar. Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, in January this year, actor Wang Xing also fell into the same trick. His girlfriend immediately sought help on Weibo, which received support from many celebrities and the media. Chinese officials made several trips to Thailand. With the efforts of multiple countries, the Myanmar military government finally launched large - scale crackdowns on border fraud dens and released thousands of victims, including Ethiopian citizens. Ethiopia asked its embassies in Japan and India to find ways to assist the victims. According to Ethiopian statistics, there are currently 700 Ethiopian citizens still waiting to be repatriated in camps controlled by ethnic armed groups such as the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) in Myanmar.
The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned the public to be cautious of false propaganda by external job agencies, emphasizing that "citizens should avoid going to overseas work destinations that have not been certified by the government, and should not believe the fraud information about 'visa - free high - paying jobs' on social media." In the past two years, due to certain economic and social fluctuations in Ethiopia, the youth unemployment rate has increased to 19.3%. As a result, many young people have taken risks to work in Southeast Asia and fallen into the traps of the parks in northern Myanmar.
