In May 2019 The Nation’s reporting around Lake Abijatta described salt flats crunching underfoot where flamingos once had deeper water. Researcher Debelle Jebessa Wako’s satellite work showed the lake’s surface shrinking from about 76 to 34 square miles between 1973 and 2006, with depth and fish collapsing as salinity rose.
Ziway, Shalla, and Langano faced similar stress. The piece blamed Ethiopian-style development, rose farms, soda works, and unpaid water extraction praised as growth by World Bank-era miracle talk.
Double-digit GDP lines never measured dead lakes. Abiy Ahmed inherited an extractive growth model; renaming the ruling party did not refill Rift Valley basins.
As environment archive, Abijatta remains a hard lesson for Horn readers: growth without water accounting is just a slower drought.
Sources: The Nation