Sultan Hanfareh Ali Mirah, who was enthroned as the spiritual chief of the Afar people on November 2011, died at the age of 74. The Sultan was a member of the most powerful family group in Afar, and the son of Sultan Ali Mirah, who reigned from 1944 to 1975.

The Sultan was about to mark the 9th anniversary of his enthronement as the spiritual leader of Afar on Nomvember 10, a position held partly in exile and as a target of castigation by the EPRDF regime. In March 2016, the spiritual leader left Ethiopia after escaping, he told Le Monde, six attempted assassinations by bullets and poisoning. In the interview with the French paper, he had expressed his support for the revolt led by the Oromos and Amharas against the TPLF dominated regime. He returned to Ethiopia on August 2018 after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office.

Mirah’s father, Sultan Ali Mirah was a revered figure and one of the leading players in Ethiopian and regional politics for four decades. With the overthrow of Haile Selassie in late 1974, Ali Mirah soon became a target of the military leaders because of his alliance with the Emperor and his semi-autonomy. On 3 June 1975, the sultan fled to Djibouti and formed the ALF that declared an armed struggle against the Derg. Mirah along with his father fought in the guerrilla war against Mengistu Haile Mariam under the wing the ALF and later joined forces with the EPRDF collation, which came to power in 1991. When the new Afar region was set up in 1992, Mirah joined his father as an administrator of the Afar region set up in 1992 and later served as president of the Afar regional State (1995-96). He had been the leader of a faction of the Afar regional Front since 1996. He also served as ambassador of Ethiopia to Kuwait.

The Alf suffered from an internal dispute between Habib Ali Mirah, who was at loggerheads with the Meles Zenawi regime, and his pro-EPRDF brother Hanfraeh Ali Mirah, who became president of the Afar Region. In April 1995 Hanfareh was suspended by his father, Sultan Ali Mirah, as ALF chair in response to electoral dissension within the Front.

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