In the north Bronx, a small group of elite Ethiopian runners struggle to survive. The persecution they fled was far more harrowing.

What it takes to defect from the military state of one of the world’s youngest countries.

Why Berhanu Nega traded a tenured position in Pennsylvania for the chance to move to a rustic Eritrean bungalow and lead a revolutionary force against an oppressive regime.

In 2008, a 38-year old Oklahoma nurse whom I'll call Kelly adopted an eight-year old girl, "Mary," from Ethiopia. It was the second adoption for Kelly, following one from Guatemala. She'd sought out a child from Ethiopia in the hopes of avoiding some of the ethical problems of adopting from Guatemala: widespread stories of birthmothers coerced to give up their babies and even payments and abductions at the hands of brokers procuring adoptees for unwitting U.S. parents. Now, even after using a reputable agency in Ethiopia, Kelly has come to believe that Mary never should have been placed for adoption.

In the 1970s, Kelbessa Negewo was a midlevel administrator in Ethiopia’s brutal Red Terror regime. In the 1990s, he was a bellhop in an Atlanta hotel. Then someone he had tortured back home recognized him.