Ethiopians pay tribute to their unsung hero

Addis Ababa: Ethiopians have expressed their regard for one of the passengers on the Kenya Airways flight which crashed in Cameroon on Saturday. The passenger, a Briton, Anthony Mitchell, aroused the ire of the Ethiopian authorities, but won the respect of many citizens of the Horn of Africa nation, with his no-holds-barred reporting of events in that country.

News is still coming regarding the fate of the passengers on Kenya Airways flight Flight 507 that crashed two days ago in Cameroon, but Ethiopians fear the worst.

Anthony Mitchell, the Associated Press correspondent based in East Africa, covered the national elections in Ethiopia, a poll that was marred by violence and saw the death of nearly 200 people and in the end, the expulsion from the country of Mitchell himself.

In that assignment, he gained the trust and respect of Ethiopians, one of whom said that the AP correspondent was the only honest voice telling the world what was really going in the Horn of Africa country.

Mitchell reported it as he saw it and not only reported on the violence the authorities unleashed and that doomed Ethiopia's hopes for a democratic transition but he also broke the news that suspected terrorists from nearly 20 countries around the world were secretly imprisoned in Ethiopia.

Mitchell, 39, a former Daily Express journalist, was returning from an assignment in Central African Republic.