Sixteen Ethiopian UN employees were detained Tuesday evening by the authorities after raids targeting Tigrayans, as the international community stepped up efforts to end the conflict between the government and rebels in the north of the country.

These arrests follow a state of emergency declared last week by the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, faced with the risk of seeing fighters from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Oromo Liberation Army. (OLA) march on the capital.

Six employees released on Tuesday

Human rights groups denounced these emergency measures and accused the government of increasing arbitrary arrests on the basis of ethnicity.

Thousands of people have been detained since last week.

Sixteen employees were still detained in the evening while six others were released, said Tuesday the spokesman of the world organization in New York, Stéphane Dujarric, affirming to have received "no explanation" for their arrest.

"We are of course working actively with the Ethiopian government to secure their immediate release," Dujarric added.

"Interference"

According to humanitarian sources, some of the UN workers were arrested at their homes.

Recurring tensions oppose the government of Abiy and the UN.

At the end of September, the Ethiopian foreign ministry thus expelled seven senior United Nations officials for "interference".

Marked by atrocities and famine, the conflict between the federal army and the Tigrayan rebels since November 2020 has killed several thousand people and displaced more than two million people.

"Opening window"

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to stop the war were intensifying and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths called for peace on Tuesday after a weekend visit to Mekele, the Tigrayan capital where he met leaders of the TPLF. "I implore all parties to heed the call of the UN Secretary General to immediately cease hostilities without preconditions, and I reiterate the UN's full support" for the African Union (AU).

The United States' envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, for his part, met the AU envoy, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Monday evening, after speaking with Ethiopian leaders. "We think there is a small window of opening to work with (Obasanjo)," US diplomacy spokesman Ned Price told reporters, adding that the United States is also in contact with the Tigrayan rebels.

Mr. Obasanjo also expressed his optimism in front of the AU security council.

"All the leaders here in Addis Ababa and in the north individually agree that the differences between them are political and require political solutions through dialogue," he said, according to a copy of his statement consulted by AFP.

"This, then, is a window of opportunity that we can collectively exploit."

"Abandon the Ethiopians"

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the army in November 2020 to Tigray to dismiss the regional authorities from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), who challenged his authority and whom he accused of having attacked military bases.

The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner declared victory a few weeks later, but TPLF fighters recaptured most of Tigray in June and then advanced into the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara.

The TPLF then claimed to have seized key towns in Amhara and advanced to about 300 km from Addis Ababa, without ruling out marching on the capital.

The government says the rebels are exaggerating their progress, but declared a state of emergency in early November and authorities in Addis Ababa called on residents to organize to defend the city.

Mass repatriations

Communications are cut off in combat zones and journalists' access is restricted, making independent verification difficult.

Several countries have called on their citizens to leave Ethiopia.

On Tuesday, the British embassy called on its nationals to leave the territory, as the United States did on Friday.

The latter ordered the departure of their non-essential government personnel the next day.

The UN has also suspended non-essential missions and among African countries, Zambia has repatriated 31 embassy employees.

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  • Rebellion

  • Africa

  • Ethiopia

  • World

  • UN

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