A tiny number of Syrian refugees, having travelled through Sudan, work in restaurants while others beg in Addis Ababa.
Addis Ababa – Abdulwahid Mohammed, a young Syrian refugee from Hama, is tending to customers at Damascus, a restaurant jointly owned by Ethiopians and Syrians in Addis Ababa’s Bole Michael district.
Mohammed, now 20, travelled to Ethiopia as a teenager with his family five years ago, fleeing theSyrian civil war.
He currently manages the restaurant, serving a mix of Syrian and Ethiopian food.
Among his Ethiopian staff, he is known as a shy workaholic.
“I came to Ethiopia through Sudan. Ever since arriving in Ethiopia I have found it to be a stable country, with a relatively easy process to get foreign residence ID. Ethiopian people have been generous to me,” he told Al Jazeera.
Mohammed wears sunglasses during the interview to disguise his identity. He fears exposing relatives back home in Syria to possible retribution by both government and rebel forces.
He is one of the hundreds of Syrians who have set up home in Ethiopia, a non-Arabic speaking, predominantly Christian, East African nation.
A Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice: 