The following is a tip I received from someone who found this on a blog. They aren't sure which agency this info comes from, but since the director of this agency is/was in Addis, my best guess is Adoption Avenues. If anyone would like to correct me on this, please comment or email me at ethioadoption@gmail.com.

Via the information I received today, from my agency director, who is currently in Addis, a preliminary investigation by the High Court has been completed. This preliminary investigation found that 1 police officer and 1 SW from Addis were involved in the cases of 17 children, which were "found" by the police officer and labeled "abandoned" by the SW.

Evidently, the children were not actually abandonded and do have birth parents. A more extensive investigation is currently underway, so they can, as soon as possible, get new court dates for the Addis children, labeled as abandonded, whose court dates have been postponed. It is believed that children other than the core (17) have NO connection to this single police officer and SW.

That is the extent of the information I received, and my agency director received it today from our in-country attorney (who's sister is the chief investigator for MOWA.) Tomorrow, my agency's director is having meetings with the US Consulate, MOWA, and court officials.If I recieve any more information, I will report it to this board.






UPDATE: There was an update to this info, posted on May 13th:
Families -- As promised, I want to pass along any information I receive from my agency director this week, while he is in Addis. Today we exchanged several emails (the internet is up and running today!). He did not have any new news about the families who have seen post-poned Court dates, but did say the Courts are "working diligently" to resolve the matter. He held meetings yesterday with Court representatives and MOWA. He seemed very happy about these meetings.