One People, Three States: Elevating Afar Voices

This event aims to uplift the voices of the Afar people, whose ancestral lands lie within three national borders: Djibouti, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. The Afar people have a rich and storied culture, yet their interests and needs are often overlooked by both international actors and governments within the Horn of Africa. Only last year, catastrophic flooding in Ethiopia's Afar region displaced hundreds of thousands of people and caused the death of thousands of livestock, severely impacting the well-being of the people in the region. We hope that this discussion will be enlightening as we learn from our featured speakers with the hope that Afar interests and needs will gain more visibility, both within the Horn of Africa and the rest of the world. Our event will be held virtually on Zoom and begins promptly on Sunday, March 7 at 1PM EST | 12PM CST | 10AM PST | 6PM GMT | 7PM CET | 9PM EAT.

Our guest speakers include:

• Ahmed Y. Mohamed is a human rights advocate, and serves as President of Eritrean Afar National Congress (EANC), an exiled Eritrean Afar political organization dedicated to self-determination in the Afar coastal homeland of Dankalia, in Eritrea.
• Dawud M. Ali is currently a lecturer and researcher at Samara University in Ethiopia, where he also serves as Executive Director for the International and Public Relation Affairs Directorate of the University. He is also the Founder and President of the Afar Development and Scholarship Fund which is dedicated to the advancement of education and development affairs in the Afar Region of Ethiopia.
• Houssein I. Houmed is a Professor of Philosophy teaching in the academies of Paris-Créteil and Versailles. As a lawyer, and regulatory affairs officer he has filed complaints with the International Criminal Court for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity against the current President of Djibouti Ismaël Omar Guelleh for the anti-AFAR genocide and the massacres of the Gadaboursi (November 22, 2013) and the Issas in Djibouti (January 2015).
• Hassan C. Ali is a Program Analyst with the U.S Naval Sea Command and an Afar rights activist. He is the co-founder of Afar Youth Association, a nonprofit organization that aims to identify, develop and connect the next generation of young Afar leaders by focusing on leadership development, education, and entrepreneurship.