The objective of this is to persuade and show that she qualifies and meets the refuge criteria for asylum seekers as there is genocide going on in Tigray
those below events are true if you can re write in to more detailed and convinced terms at least by citing from https://www.state.gov/atrocities-in-ethiopias-tigray-region/, https://www.state.gov/continuing-atrocities-and-denial-of-humanitarian-access-in-ethiopias-tigray-region/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57226551
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/19/africa/ethiopia-tigray-rape-investigation-cmd-intl/index.html
My name is Liza I was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My mother and father were both born and raised in Tigray. My mom moved to Addis Ababa as a teenager and my dad in his early twenties. They got married early 1998 and had me on September 2nd of the same year. I am the oldest of 7 children, I have 5 brothers and 1 sister (the youngest).
I went to School of Tomorrow up until the 4th grade and transferred to Gibson Youth Academy when I got to the 5th grade in 2008. As an introvert, I had a little trouble adjusting into a new school, but I managed. Growing up with boys I was into sports, I played soccer and basketball in school. I was in the graduation committee my senior year of high school (2015/2016). Our responsibilities were to plan and put together celebrations like prom, cultural day and mainly to prepare the yearbook which included getting a cameraman to take the pictures, getting senior quotes from students and raising money to pay for it. I graduate high school in 2016 and came to the US as an international student (F1 Visa) to pursue my bachelors degree. I graduated from DePaul University with a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology in December of 2020.
Addis Ababa, being the capital of Ethiopia, is a very diverse city where people from different ethnic groups live together as brothers and sisters; or so I thought. Back in my high school days (2012 – 2016) my classmates used to say lots of things about Tigrayans. My senior year one of my friends told me, It was the end of you (Tigrayans), Ginbot 7(an opposition political organization) is coming for you. I didnt think much about it because I didnt even know what Ginbot 7 was at the time.
Not one day had passed by without me hearing, this business is built by the money of hard-working Ethiopians implying that Tigrayans were thieves; every single day on our way from/to school at least one person says it. I was conditioned to those comments to the point where I didnt even understand that I was being harassed at the time.
I only understood what was going on a couple of years ago when Hailemariam Desalegn, former prime minister of Ethiopia, resigned and was replaced by Abiy Ahmed who is currently in power. After Abiy Ahmed became prime minister, I started noticing things. Things like being stopped by the police for a routine check and making up excuses to ticket me as soon as they look at my ID and see that Im Tigrayan. The first time I thought maybe I really didnt use my turn signal (although I was pretty sure that I did) so I let it go but then it happened 2 more times in the 4 weeks that I was in Ethiopia for winter break in 2019. And it would always happen to me and not my friends. When my friends are the ones driving: we get stopped, they ask for their license, they tell us it was a routine check, tell us to have a good day and let us go. Thats when everything started coming back to me and I understood that I had been harassed in high school as well.
I had even forgotten about the Ginbot 7 incident where my friend told me that it was the end of us until I saw that he attended a protest in dc in support of the ongoing genocide in Tigray. Tigrayans held a peaceful protest in DC asking for the help of the United States to stop this genocide. 3 days later, there was another one held by people that were in support of the genocide with posters like, America! Get your own house in order first and stay out of Ethiopia and Ethiopian politics. Tigrayans are only asking for humanitarian aid and an investigation because war crimes are being committed in Tigray but those people, some of whom I thought were my friends, went out counter protesting us.
My family had been, and still continue to be, harassed more times than I can count. My mom is worried about my younger siblings mental state because every time she drives them to school people call them junta. So far, my parents house and two of their business places had been searched twice for no other reason than being Tigrayan. At the second search they also detained two security guards, one from each business place, for over a week.
It is a mental torture knowing my relatives back in Tigray are being raped, killed or at best displaced from their homes, knowing anything could happen to my family in Addis at any given time. Its just mentally draining.
I had plans to go back home after earning my bachelors degree but with the government having declared war on Tigray, my ethnic group, I couldnt. And so, I hereby seek asylum in the United States of America for my safety.
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