In Ethiopia, fighting continues in the Tigray region in the absence of independent witnesses. Federal troops are trying to take the region’s capital and capture the leaders of the Tigrayan party that controls it, the TPLF. In the other provinces of the federation, and especially in the capital, there is growing concern among Tigrayans about the fear of arrest or ethnic retaliation.
A Tigrayan from Addis Ababa relies on taking care not to speak Tigrinya when he is on the street. Another burned his papers mentioning his native nation. Many Tigrayan employees and officials have been urged to stay home. In general, since the outbreak of discrimination in Tigray, they have been discreet and have almost never left the city.
It must be said that the Tigrayans are now the subject of special attention. On Friday, the National Human Rights Commission also asked for civil aviation explanations. Tigrayan passengers are actually rejected when boarding Addis Ababa.
On the same day, the police in the Amhara region asked the World Food Program for a list of its employees in Tigrayan, which the UN categorically refused. The head of security at the African Union headquarters – a Tigray – was fired at the request of the Ethiopian government. And six Tigrayan journalists were arrested during the week.
On the part of the authorities, we want to be reassuring. When asked a question, a senior Ethiopian diplomat explains that the TPLF has ruled the country for 30 years, its supporters are everywhere in the state apparatus and civil society.
“We do not have a desire to issue the Tigrayans, but to remove the secret networks in the TPLF,” he explains.
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