The fighting between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) wasn’t a surprise to Tigrayans living in Addis Ababa: They had seen it coming for years. What they didn’t expect was to be living in fear so far away from the front lines.

Speaking with The New Humanitarian in a series of interviews over the past month, half a dozen Tigrayans living in the country’s capital described ethnic profiling and growing harassment. Such abuse and discrimination by neigbours, strangers, and government officials could, analysts and others warn, widen the rift among Ethiopia’s increasingly polarised ethnic groups, leading to renewed conflict.