On a seemingly relaxing Sunday afternoon at an Ethiopian friend’s house, I received a phone call with news that earlier that day more than 100 people had drowned or been crushed to death.
A stampede had ensued at an annual festival – to which I’d been invited with the press pack – after protesters and police clashed beside the waters of a holy lake, 30 miles south-east of my location in the Ethiopian capital.
After hanging up, my thoughts swung from: “Damn it, what a scoop I’ve missed!” to “Hold on, who cares you weren’t there? More importantly, what a grotesque human catastrophe.” Indeed, the mind baulks at the horror and panic of those caught in the epicentre before utter darkness replaced all.
