---
type: Video
title: "I Entered Ethiopia's War-Torn Rebel Zone 🇪🇹"
description: Harry sets out to carry a gift to a priest in northern Ethiopia — buying a cross and a goat in Addis Ababa and Dessie, then driving 500 km toward Tigray through checkpoints and a fragile peace.
tags: [ethiopia, addis-ababa, tigray, dessie, khat, coffee, conflict]
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2C5dBQhHTk
video_id: m2C5dBQhHTk
upload_date: 2025-07-05
duration: 1991
---

# I Entered Ethiopia's War-Torn Rebel Zone 🇪🇹

Part one of a journey north through [Ethiopia](/countries/ethiopia.md) to bring
a gift to a priest at a remote church. The gift takes most of the video: a
cross bought in [Addis Ababa](/places/addis-ababa.md), and then a live goat,
which requires a three-hour hunt round a livestock market in Dessie on the
wrong day of the week.

Underneath the comedy is the reason the trip is difficult. The 2020 civil war
in the north killed over 600,000 people, which Harry points out barely
registered internationally, and the peace signed in late 2022 has not held
evenly. Tigray has fragmented into factions, some leaders remain armed, and
Ethiopian troops are still in the area. He is straightforward that the war
could restart and that civilians are stuck in the middle.

## Key moments

- [00:00] The war: over 600,000 dead in northern Ethiopia, and almost no global
  coverage.
- [00:33] The mission — a gift for a priest at what he calls the world's most
  dangerous church.
- [00:33] Mercato in Addis, and the first man who objects to being filmed.
- [01:04] His method for it: don't delete, smile, explain you're filming
  yourself, and keep walking. His phrase is kill them with kindness.
- [02:11] Ethiopia has over 80 tribes and correspondingly over 80 languages.
- [02:47] Addis at around 6 million, much of it people who came in from the
  regions looking for work and are portering goods because they didn't find it.
- [03:50] Khat.
- [04:21] What it is: a stimulant leaf, which he has also chewed in Yemen and
  Somalia.
- [05:00] How it's used — chewed and held in the cheek, with an effect after
  twenty or thirty minutes that he describes as ten coffees.
- [05:31] It's legal here and grown locally.
- [06:04] A seller switches to dollars and pushes the price. Harry pays and
  makes the point he keeps making: there are good and bad people everywhere, and
  most are in the middle, and you don't know what someone has been through.
- [07:04] A 25-year-old who owns his own electronics shop, which Harry contrasts
  with what he was doing at 25.
- [07:37] Asked for one good and one bad thing about Ethiopia: the weather, and
  that everything is expensive and inflation is high.
- [08:44] Street coffee, which he rates the best in the world.
- [09:47] 30 birr. He pays 100.
- [10:18] A cross necklace for the priest, 2,500.
- [11:50] And a goat, because he's told people here like goats.
- [14:35] Dessie, where he has no idea where to buy one.
- [15:07] He asks ChatGPT, which tells him there's a livestock market on
  specific days and roughly what a goat costs.
- [15:37] A shared taxi to it, 500.
- [17:17] It's the wrong market day, and everything there is full-grown.
- [19:07] Three hours into the hunt, over coffee.
- [20:43] 10,000 asked for an oversized kid.
- [21:53] The choice: take the big goat now, or lose a day waiting for a small
  one.
- [22:28] 5,000, and the goat acquires a name.
- [24:34] Monkeys and camels on the road north.
- [25:10] Heavy military presence — uniforms and weapons — which he deliberately
  doesn't film and says why.
- [26:51] A man beside him on the road turns out to watch his videos, from
  Eritrea, and briefs him on the checkpoints ahead and where bribes are
  expected. Harry says he'd have been stuck without it.
- [28:34] The checkpoint passes without a bribe after all.
- [29:05] A hotel owner recognises him and offers a room for nothing.
- [30:46] Woldiya, halfway to Mekelle.
- [31:18] The background: civil war broke out in 2020 between the federal
  government and the TPLF, thousands were killed and many displaced, and a peace
  deal was signed in late 2022 — which some leaders reject and remain armed
  against. Tigray has since split into factions.
- [31:53] Ethiopian troops remain in the area checking for clashes. He calls the
  situation fragile and says the war could restart at any time.

## Extracted pages

- Place: [Addis Ababa](/places/addis-ababa.md)
- Country: [Ethiopia](/countries/ethiopia.md)