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A bloody conflict has been raging in Ethiopia for a year and has recently escalated. Rebels are a few hundred kilometers from Addis Ababa. The pressure on the government is growing.
Nairobi – In the crisis state of Ethiopia, the pressure on the central government and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is growing. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) claims to be less than 350 kilometers from the capital Addis Ababa.
Hundreds of refugees from the conflict regions Tigray, Amhara and Afar arrived in the capital, as an eyewitness to the dpa said. The government is planning a demonstration against the rebels for Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to protest. The US embassy in Addis Ababa withdrew US government employees and their families and advised US citizens to leave the country as soon as possible.
state of emergency
The military conflict in the country on the Horn of Africa, where an estimated 650 Germans live, has intensified significantly in the past few days. The government announced a state of emergency on Tuesday. On Friday, nine Ethiopian opposition factions signed an alliance against Abiy’s government in Washington. One wanted to get Abiy to form a transitional government through “negotiations or by force”, it was said in a press conference afterwards.
The UN Security Council called for an end to the violence. The most powerful UN body demands of the conflicting parties “to negotiate a permanent ceasefire and create the conditions for the start of an inclusive Ethiopian national dialogue”.
The rebels have now been able to gain access to one of the most important highways in the country. According to reports, the militias are also trying to cut the supply route from the port in Djibouti to Addis Ababa.
The conflict broke out when Abiy began to oust the TPLF, which was in power in the Tigray region. She dominated Ethiopia for a good 25 years until Abiy came to power in 2018. Many people in Tigray feel that they are not represented by the central government and are demanding more autonomy. Around 400,000 people in the north are now at acute risk of starvation. dpa
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