标签： Africa

Against the backdrop of a year marked by lingering uncertainty for thousands of Ethiopian immigrants across the United States, hundreds of Ethiopian Orthodox Christian community members gathered at DSK Mariam Church in Washington, D.C. Clad entirely in crisp white garments, the faithful packed the sacred space to mark Fasika, their community’s most cherished celebration of Christ’s resurrection, which falls one week after Easter observed by Catholic and Protestant denominations.

For the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, one of Christianity’s oldest continuous branches, Fasika sits as the crown jewel of the liturgical calendar. In the weeks leading up to the holy day, believers complete a rigorous 55-day fast, abstaining from all meat and animal products. Rituals build steadily through Holy Week, reaching their peak in an overnight eight-hour vigil that concludes with the long-awaited breaking of the fast.

This year’s celebration carried extra weight for the congregation. Just months prior, the Trump administration moved to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for more than 5,000 Ethiopian immigrants across the country, a decision that would have put thousands of long-term U.S. residents at risk of deportation. The threat hung over the community until a federal judge issued a ruling blocking the administration’s order, granting a temporary reprieve to those affected.

The D.C. metro area is home to the largest concentration of Ethiopian diaspora members in the United States, a community built over 50 years of successive waves of immigration that now includes first- and second-generation Ethiopian Americans. DSK Mariam, formally named Re’ese Adbarat Debre Selam Kidist Mariam Church, serves roughly 4,000 congregants every week, making it a central hub for cultural and spiritual life. This year, roughly 1,500 people packed the church for the overnight Easter vigil that concluded at 3 a.m. Sunday.

Archdeacon Getahun Atlaw explained that the all-white dress worn by worshippers carries deep symbolic meaning: “We dress in white so that we are groomed for heaven.” For Atlaw, the diaspora community does not merely gather for worship — it brings long-held Ethiopian values of hard work, discipline and collective care to its new home: “We’re not here merely, we bring values.”

The overnight vigil itself is rich with centuries-old symbolism. Leading the three-hour Divine Liturgy that ran from midnight to 3 a.m. — a timeline mirroring the three hours the Bible records Christ spent on the cross — priest Abraham Habte-Sellassie emphasized the centrality of the resurrection to the faith: “The climax is the resurrection because if there was no resurrection, there would be no Christianity. It would just be an empty philosophy.”

Earlier in Holy Week, on Good Friday, priests draped in dark purple and gold vestments chanted pleas for divine mercy, and enacted a ritual where a flame is beaten out to symbolize the defeat of Satan. Throughout the service, clergy and congregants repeated prostrations, an act of reverence for Christ’s sacrifice. “The prostration is a passion to Christ’s love. What he has done for us, the sacrifice,” Atlaw explained. “We’re living Christ-like as much as we can.”

At the moment of the resurrection vigil, all lights in the sanctuary are dimmed, and long, thin beeswax candles called tuaf are lit by the faithful. The glow of the candles represents the light of Christ breaking through the darkness of death, and when the candles are lit, the entire church erupts in united chant: “Your resurrection is for us who believe. Send your light upon us, send your light upon us.” For 21-year-old Deacon Amanuel Argaw, the joy of the moment overrides any physical fatigue from the long service: “The celebration is so joyful that you don’t even feel that you’re tired.”

When the final prayer concluded, congregants streamed out into the pre-dawn streets, drawn by the rich aroma of doro wat — a beloved traditional Ethiopian spicy chicken stew — simmering for the post-fast feast. Small groups gathered on the sidewalk to share small bites to end their 55-day fast before heading home to rest, with larger family feasts planned later in the day.

For the diaspora community, passing down these ancient traditions to younger generations born and raised in the U.S. is a core priority. “This history and value can go wherever Ethiopians go. This is our history. How can we take it lightly? … This is who we are,” Atlaw said. “We have to pass it from generation to generation.”

In a suburban Virginia home that warm Sunday, extended families gathered around tables piled high with homemade doro wat, traditional honey wine called Tej, and freshly brewed Ethiopian coffee. For Selamawit Tekola, who has kept the faith her whole life, breaking the fast with family is non-negotiable: “I was born Orthodox and I respect it, I love it. So that means a lot for us. That’s what we are teaching our children.”

Her niece Adey Thomas joked that when the community calls everyone to gather, there is no room to skip: “When Selama says, take off work and show up, it’s not optional. In the States, it’s very, you know, rush to go, go, go especially in the D.C. area. This is the one time to stop and celebrate with family.”

Amid the feasting and prayer, young deacon Jonathan Melaku, whose generation is carrying the tradition forward, summed up the community’s enduring spirit in the face of past and present hardship: “It takes a grind and courage to get to where they’re at. Our people will always stay resilient.”

KAMPALA, Uganda – The long-awaited trial of a Ugandan man charged with the brutal murder of four young children opened Monday in an unconventional setting: a large canvas tent pitched just kilometers from the scene of the crime, marking the first live test of the East African nation’s new and divisive mobile court system. The public, on-site proceeding was ordered directly by President Yoweri Museveni to allow local community members to follow the high-profile case that shook the country earlier this year.

The accused, Christopher Okello Onyum, stands accused of launching a machete attack on children at the Gaba Early Childhood Development Program, a neighborhood nursery school in Kampala’s Gaba suburb, on April 2. According to witness accounts, Onyum gained entry to the facility by posing as a parent, exchanged a short conversation with school administrators, then locked the school’s entrance gate before turning his weapon on the young students. The attack sent shockwaves across Uganda, and investigators have yet to establish a clear motive for the violence.

When Onyum was detained immediately after the attack, an enraged local crowd attempted to seize and lynch him before police intervened to take him into custody safely. At the opening of trial Monday, Onyum entered a formal plea of not guilty on four counts of aggravated murder. If ultimately convicted, he could be sentenced to death.

This trial marks the first operational use of Uganda’s mobile court framework, a policy that received formal approval via a government legal notice published in March. Designed to bring judicial proceedings closer to affected communities and allow public access to cases of widespread national interest, the system has sparked heated debate from its rollout. President Museveni’s directive to hold this specific trial in a public, local setting has drawn sharp criticism from legal groups, who argue the order amounts to inappropriate overreach by the executive branch that risks undermining the integrity of the trial.

The Uganda Law Society, the country’s premier professional body for legal practitioners, issued a public statement condemning the directive, arguing it violates the accused’s constitutional right to a fair trial. In harsh terms, the organization called the proceeding “not justice” but “a judicial lynching rally,” warning that the public, high-pressure setting risks sensationalizing the tragedy inflicted on the victims’ families rather than delivering impartial justice.

Despite the controversy, hundreds of local residents gathered at the trial site, a tent set up on the grounds of a nearby local church, to observe the opening proceedings. For its part, Uganda’s judiciary has pushed back against critics, defending the mobile court model as an innovative step to expand public access to justice. In a statement defending the decision to hold the trial, the judiciary said the proceeding reflects its ongoing “commitment to taking justice closer to the people through innovative approaches.”

More than a decade after 40-year-old Scottish woman Charmain Speirs was found dead in a Ghanaian hotel bathtub just six months after marrying self-proclaimed prophet Eric Adusah, a new BBC Disclosure documentary has uncovered critical omissions and unresolved inconsistencies in the official investigation into her death, alongside long-hidden accounts of abuse and manipulation from Adusah’s former partners.

Charmain’s life, shaped by early hardship, led her to embrace Pentecostal Christianity as a source of comfort after struggling with post-natal depression as a single mother. Having weathered turbulent romantic relationships and personal tragedy — including the loss of one brother to a car crash and another to heroin addiction — she craved a partner rooted in faith, according to close friends. In spring 2014, she met Adusah, a Ghana-born prominent Pentecostal pastor who led the Global Light Revival Church and appeared regularly on Christian television, via a Christian dating platform. What followed was a whirlwind romance: the pair announced their engagement within weeks and married that September, shocking Charmain’s family who had not even known she was dating.

After the wedding, Charmain stepped into the role of “first lady” of Adusah’s congregation, a position that transformed her social status within the movement. But cracks in the marriage quickly emerged. During a visit, friend Anne-Marie recalled Charmain confiding that her relationship lacked any love or affection. Pregnant with Adusah’s child, Charmain returned to her hometown of Arbroath, Scotland, to stay with her mother Linda, admitting the marriage was failing and that she planned to move home permanently. Just days later, she traveled to Ghana with Adusah, a trip that would be her last. Linda never saw her daughter alive again.

According to police statements obtained by the BBC, Adusah told investigators that after a day of sightseeing with Charmain, he left the hotel just after midnight to travel to Accra for a 6 a.m. meeting ahead of a return flight to the UK, claiming Charmain had chosen to stay behind longer. But a hotel night worker, speaking to the documentary under the pseudonym Edward, revealed a key detail Adusah never disclosed to Ghanaian detectives: two unknown men arrived at the couple’s room 112 with Adusah late that night, stayed for nearly an hour, and helped him load bags into his car before he left. Adusah instructed hotel staff not to disturb his wife after his departure. Edward told the BBC he saw Charmain alive roughly five hours before Adusah and the men left the property.

Ghanaian police documents confirm three men were present at the hotel that night, and two of the visitors have since been traced — both confirmed their presence through Adusah’s ministry, claiming they were only in the room to pray. One claimed Charmain was lively and active during the visit, while the other only confirmed she was present. A third man has never been located or interviewed by investigators.

The BBC commissioned retired Scottish Detective Superintendent Allan Jones to review the entire Ghanaian police case file. Jones described Adusah’s failure to mention the late-night visitors as deeply suspicious. “If you’ve got that many people coming to that room, even as potential defence witnesses, you should absolutely mention them,” Jones noted. Further, when the BBC tracked down the reverend Adusah claimed he was meeting in Accra that morning, the cleric did not confirm Adusah’s alibi. Jones added that this critical alibi check was never conducted by Ghanaian investigators, a major gap in the probe. The Ghana Police Service did not respond to the BBC’s requests for comment on the investigation’s shortcomings.

After Charmain’s body was found, Adusah framed his wife as a suicidal, long-term drug user — a narrative that secured his release from police custody on suspicion of murder due to insufficient evidence. The lead pathologist on the case, Dr. Afua Abrahams, recorded a probable cause of death as heroin overdose after finding heroin metabolites in Charmain’s blood and liver samples, and noted no obvious signs of violent trauma. But the case raises immediate red flags: heroin is extremely rare in Koforidua, the small Ghanaian city where Charmain was staying, and police found no drug paraphernalia, no traces of heroin in the hotel room, and no drugs among her personal belongings.

More than 20 of Charmain’s close family and friends uniformly deny that she used drugs or was suicidal. Her mother Linda told the BBC Charmain despised drug use, often saying she could not understand why anyone would harm their body that way. Bridesmaid Mehrunissa Thomas added that Charmain would never have used drugs while pregnant, calling the claim totally out of character. A subsequent second post-mortem examination conducted in the UK tested Charmain’s hair for opioids and returned a negative result, confirming she was not a long-term drug user.

The BBC’s investigation also uncovered that Adusah uses multiple aliases: he is known as Eric Adu Brefo in Ghana and Eric Isaiah Kusi Boateng in Maryland, the U.S. state where he currently resides and still preaches. Multiple former partners came forward to describe patterns of coercive control, emotional abuse, and manipulation rooted in his religious authority. One former partner, speaking under the pseudonym Emily, recalled Adusah controlling every aspect of her life, from her hairstyle and clothing to restricting her contact with family and confiscating her phone. He used religious doctrine to manipulate her, she said, framing his control as God’s will to avoid resistance.

Charmain’s now 19-year-old son Isaac, who lived with the couple for a time, recalled firsthand witnessing physical and psychological abuse. “I heard my mum screaming and crying, and when he came to hit me, she stepped between us and he punched her in the face,” Isaac told the documentary. “He controlled every part of her life: her phone, her money, her clothes, even what she ate. That wasn’t a marriage — it was him dictating every part of her existence. What prophet hits a child and abuses their wife? He’s not a man of God, he’s an evil person.”

Linda Speirs also said she discovered evidence of abuse when she found multiple bald patches on the back of Charmain’s scalp, which her daughter admitted came from Adusah pulling her hair. A church insider who gave a statement to UK police also revealed that shortly before her death, Charmain had obtained a secret second phone after Adusah confiscated her primary device. She had discovered Adusah was using a false name, lying about his age, and had another wife living in Ghana, and was planning to file for divorce. The insider told police she received a call from Charmain the night before she died, during which she could hear Adusah shouting and slamming his hand on the table, before a final bang cut the call short. This statement was never shared with Ghanaian investigators because UK authorities declined to share evidence with a country that retains the death penalty.

When the BBC tracked Adusah to his current home in Maryland, he acknowledged the investigation but claimed the repeated questions had caused him severe emotional distress, saying he had already endured profound trauma after losing his wife and unborn child. He declined to answer any specific questions about the allegations of abuse, the gaps in his statement, or the multiple aliases.

The full, three-part documentary *Charmain and the Prophet* is set to premiere on Monday 13 April, airing on BBC Two at 10 p.m. GMT and BBC One Scotland at 8 p.m. GMT, with all episodes available on BBC iPlayer following the broadcast. To this day, the full truth of what happened in hotel room 112 remains unconfirmed, and Isaac continues to search for answers about his mother’s death.