Ethiopia has been ravaged by a bloody conflict for over a year, an ongoing civil war that has been named the "Tigray War," after the region where the clashes began. 

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Reports from the East African country show violence, cruelty, and massacres, which, unfortunately, characterize most of Ethiopian history. 

The war began in November 2020, when the Tigray People's Liberation Front – a politically powerful entity that had dominated Ethiopian politics for almost 30 years as a repressive regime through a one-party dominant system and opposed Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's efforts to re-centralize all state powers in Addis Ababa – carried out a surprise attack on the Ethiopian National Defense Force's Northern Command headquarter in Mekelle, capital of the region.  

Other outposts across the province were also targeted by the rebels, which they described as a "preemptive strike," while the Ethiopian government claimed the militia carried out massacres and mass executions after they took control of the area. 

"After they surprised and overpowered several regiments of the ENDF forces, the TPLF identified and separated hundreds of unarmed Ethiopian soldiers of non-Tigrayan origin, tied their hands and feet together, massacred them in cold blood, and left their bodies lying in the open air," Ahmed described the events. 

"Never would I have imagined it humanly possible for any person to kill their fellow soldiers while asleep and record themselves singing and dancing on the bodies of their victims."

The TPLF initially denied the accusations, but later admitted to targeting the military headquarters.

A year after the clashes began – and seemingly far from over – Israel Hayom sat down with the Ethiopian Ambassador to Israel Reta Alemu Nega, a lawyer by trade, who has held several diplomatic positions across the world.

"The Nothern Command of the National Defense Force is one of the strongest in Ethiopia, and it was stationed there for over 20 years. The blatant attack by the regional government was a shocking crime against one's own people. Nobody expected this kind of attack against the National Defense Force and committing such atrocities."

The federal government immediately declared a state of emergency and sent forces to Tigray. 

"This attack was not only shocking but also very destabilizing," the ambassador added. "All the equipment located at the base was in the rebels' hands now. The TPLF also fired missiles at civilian areas. However after a successful operation of the reinforcement of forces [by the central government], within a period of three weeks, the source of the rebels' power diminished."

Q: Who arms the rebels and why?

"The TPLF was in communication with various groups and foreign powers. Some say they have had assistance from Egyptians, the Sudanese, but they've also been telling bluntly that they have support from some Western governments. What kind of support did they receive? It is up to them to reveal these details, but they obtained support from different forces."

Q: Why would the Western governments support them and not the federal government? 

"It is up to some of these Western governments to explain the rationality, but it goes against principles of international relations that say that the territorial integrity, solemnity, and national independence of a country have to be protected. All other nations need to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ethiopia. We have been asking all those nations who support the rebels that they should not interfere with our domestic affairs because we can handle our issues ourselves."

Q: Is Israel involved in the conflict? 

"Israel does not assist the rebels. We have excellent relations with Israel and the Israeli government has stated clearly that it supports the democratically-elected government and they give us their full support in all arenas. We cooperate at all levels. 

"To the best of my knowledge, there are agreements on cooperation between military industries, but there is no direct military assistance from Israel."

Two weeks ago, the TPLF announced it began withdrawing from several areas it had occupied.

"We decided to withdraw from these areas to Tigray," TPLF Spokesman Getachew Reda said. "We want to open the door to humanitarian aid."

It was later reported that Debretsion Gebremichael, chairperson of TPLF, sent a letter to the United Nations with a proposal for a ceasefire.

"We trust that our bold act of withdrawal will be a decisive opening for peace," Gebremichael wrote, calling for an immediate end to hostilities and for negotiations to begin.

The central government dismissed the ceasefire call and cast doubts on the rebels' motives.

"The resolution of this phase is something that we're committed to in terms of ensuring that it's done in a peaceful way and through political means. Nevertheless, any political solution will always be centered on justice, will be centered on accountability, and also in dialogue," Billene Seyoum, the prime minister's spokesperson, said.

Last week, following a request by the European Union, the UN Human Rights Council launched a commission of inquiry into the war due to allegations of war crimes.

The commission will comprise three human rights experts who will investigate both parties in the conflict based on their actions from November 2020 to June 2021.

The move was supported by 21 member countries with 15 against and 11 abstaining. African nations mostly abstained or voted against the move.

"The government is busy bringing about a stable peace and the problems we have in the Tigray Region," Nega said. "The terrorist attacks were most shocking. The murder of innocent people, gang rape, destruction of public property, including schools – these are the most disturbing. The government must put an end to this and bring peace to the country."

In 2019, a year after the war broke out, Ahmed won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in ending the 20-year post-war territorial stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

"Abiy Ahmed has initiated important reforms that give many citizens hope for a better life and a brighter future," the Nobel committee said. 

After receiving the award, the prime minister vowed to "bury this enemy with our blood and bones and make the glory of Ethiopia high again."

In an earlier interview with Israel Hayom, Reda, who, as mentioned above, is the spokesperson for the TPLF, denied allegations that the group was receiving external financial support. 

"We do not receive any assistance from Eastern or Western governments. Only from the people of Tigray."

Besides being engaged in a war, Ethiopia, like all nations of the world, has also had to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

The second most populous African country, Ethiopia has a population of 115 million people, most of whom live in rural areas and far from the reach of the central government. As such, tracking patients is a difficult task, and coronavirus statistics are not always accurate.

Official data says that 7,000 Ethiopians have died of the virus since the outbreak of the pandemic, and in the past week an average of 1,000 cases were reported daily.

As a result, the World Health Organization mobilized to aid the African continent, with efforts headed by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, former health and foreign minister of Ethiopia.

However, according to Nega, "The WHO is not doing enough. We are a country of 115 million people and not even 5% of the population are vaccinated. They have not been efficient. Implementing the COVAX program [a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access] is far from meeting expectations and as we see, the situation in Africa still needs to be addressed."

Matshidiso Moeti, regional director of the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, recently expressed cautious optimism about Omicron – a coronavirus strain recently identified in South Africa – and said, "Deaths and severe illness remained low in the current wave." Nevertheless, she warned that due to a low vaccination rate, "the number of infected could be much higher."

Ghebreyesus said in a recent briefing, "All of us are tired of this pandemic. We all want to spend time with friends and family. We all want to get back to our normal lives. The quickest way for all of us, leaders and individuals, to do that is to make hard decisions to protect ourselves and others. In some cases, this means canceling or postponing events. It is better to cancel now and celebrate later than to celebrate now and grieve later. A canceled event is better than a canceled life."

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

Despite the war and the pandemic, Ethiopia and Israel maintained close ties. Nega spoke of the relationship between the two countries that date back to the Biblical period. 

The Kebra Nagast, a national Ethiopian epic, is considered to hold the genealogy of the dynasty of King Solomon. 

It contains an account of how the Queen of Sheba (Queen Makeda of Ethiopia) met King Solomon and about how the Ark of the Covenant came to Ethiopia with their son Menelik I . It also discusses the conversion of the Ethiopians from the worship of the Sun, Moon, and stars to that of the "Lord God of Israel".

Nega recommended British author Graham Hancock's 1992 book The Sign and the Seal, in which he describes his quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant, which according to the ambassador is a "highly-valued treasure for both Jews and Ethiopian Christians."

The post Did Western countries enable Ethiopia's civil war? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

American and British citizens have been swept up in Ethiopia's mass detentions of ethnic Tigrayans under a new state of emergency in the country's escalating war, The Associated Press has found.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Thousands of Tigrayans in the capital, Addis Ababa, and across Africa's second most populous country have already been detained and fears of more such detentions soared on Thursday as authorities ordered landlords to register tenants' identities with police. Meanwhile, men armed with sticks were seen on some streets as volunteer groups sought out Tigrayans to report them.

Ethiopia's government says it is detaining people suspected of supporting the forces from the Tigray region who are approaching Addis Ababa following a year-long war with Ethiopian forces that was triggered by a political falling-out. But human rights groups, lawyers, relatives and the government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission say detentions – including of children and the elderly – appear to be on the basis of ethnicity.

The daughter of a British national, Meron Kiros, told the AP her 55-year-old father, Kiros Amdemariam Gebreab, had lived in the UK for more than a quarter-century and was visiting Ethiopia to work on his PhD studies when he was detained at his home in the capital on Nov. 1.

"My father has no political involvement in what has been happening," she said and attributed his arrest to "purely for being a Tigrayan human being." She said the family had not been allowed any communication with him, which she described as heartbreaking.

The British government told the AP it has raised his case with Ethiopian authorities. Britain believes a very small number of UK nationals have been detained.

At least two US citizens are among the Tigrayans detained as well.

A hotelier and his son were detained at their home on Nov. 2, the evening the state of emergency was imposed. Police officers accused them of supporting the Tigray forces, another of the hotelier's children told the AP. The father, in his late 70s, was released after three days, but the son remains in custody. He has not been charged.

"My brother moved back here because he wanted to invest in Ethiopia and after a life here after living in the US," the relative said, speaking like many on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

A State Department spokesperson told the AP that the US is "concerned about reports of detentions of a number of US citizens in Ethiopia and is in active discussion with the government of Ethiopia about the matter."But the overwhelming majority of Tigrayans detained have been local, some of them high-profile.

On Monday morning, the CEO of Lion Bank was detained along with seven of his colleagues and a customer, a lawyer told the AP. They were held at a police station before being released in late evening, the lawyer said.

An Ethiopian Orthodox Church official in Addis Ababa confirmed this week that dozens of priests, monks, deacons and others had been detained because of their ethnicity, including an assistant to the church's patriarch.

A civil servant for the Addis Ababa city administration said two friends were arrested while having lunch at a cafe on Nov. 5 after plainclothes police officers overheard them speaking Tigrinya. He has not heard from them since.

"So far, I have been lucky," the civil servant said, but he worried it is "only a matter of time" before he is arrested, too.

Federal police spokesman Jeylan Abdi told the AP he did not know the number of people detained since the state of emergency was declared last week. He said the detainees are held in various police stations and the total had not been tallied.

He dismissed as "propaganda" allegations that detentions are ethnically motivated and said searches found weapons in the detainees' possession, including assault rifles and heavy machine guns, as well as military uniforms.

The police spokesman also confirmed the presence in the capital of "community policing" groups, staffed by volunteers, but said they are "not new." He said they are patrolling their neighborhoods with sticks and working with the police to identify threats.

"They organize themselves, they elect their chairman and they protect the security around their home, not only from terrorist group but even ordinary crime," he said.

Thousands of people have been killed in Ethiopia's war, millions of people in Tigray remain under a government blockade and hundreds of thousands of people in the Amhara region are displaced as the Tigray fighters press on. Envoys from the African Union and the US in recent days held urgent discussions in search of an immediate cease-fire and a path to talks. But the warring sides indicated it will not be straightforward or easy.

"I believe that all sides see the dangers of perpetuating the conflict," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Wednesday. "The alternative of conflict that overtakes Ethiopia, spills out of the country, spills into the region, should be sobering to everyone."

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post US, UK citizens caught up in Ethiopia's arrests of Tigrayans appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday that officers implicated in war crimes were evacuated to the country, Israel's Channel 13 news reported.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Citing a security source, Channel 13 said at least four of those evacuated to Israel were officers who engaged in war crimes, with at least one of those involved in a massacre that took place in Ethiopia's Tigray region.

Israel recently opened an investigation after discovering that several people who had arrived in the country from Ethiopia in recent months lied about their Jewish heritage and the dangers they faced in their birth country.

Ethiopia is facing a dire humanitarian situation amid a conflict between Ethiopia's government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, and many countries are calling on their citizens to leave the area.

The African Union's envoy for the Horn of Africa warned Monday that there is a short "window of opportunity" and little time to reverse the crisis in the country's north, which has drastically deteriorated in recent weeks amid an escalating offensive by Tigray forces against the government.

Olusegun Obasanjo told the UN Security Council that after talks with Ethiopia's president and prime minister, and the presidents of the Tigray and Oromo regions whose forces are fighting government troops, he can say that they all "agree individually that the differences between them are political and require political solution through dialogue."

Obasanjo and US envoy Jeffrey Feltman have been holding urgent talks in search of a cease-fire in the year-old war that has killed thousands.

Feltman returned to Ethiopia from Kenya on Monday and US State Department spokesman Ned Price also said "we believe there is a small window of opening" to work with Obasanjo "to further joint efforts to peacefully resolve the conflict."

Israel's Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning last week for Ethiopia, urging Israelis to avoid unnecessary travel to the destination. Citizens already there were also asked to shorten their stay and avoid areas of conflict.

Although the Ethiopian government denied any threat to Addis Ababa, authorities in the capital asked residents to organize to defend the city.

The TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Army – the rebel factions fighting Ethiopia's government – last week claimed responsibility for the capture of several strategic towns in the Amhara region.

Meanwhile, Israel's Population and Immigration Authority described its operation to secretly detain dozens of Ethiopian citizens after their immigration as a "planned conspiracy that exploited the system," the Haaretz daily reported.

An examination by the Population Authority revealed that 53 out of 61 who arrived from Ethiopia came at the request of a private Israeli citizen, who wanted to bring his ex-wife and people who ran his business to Israel.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

"The feeling that was received was that a planned conspiracy had been created here that took advantage of the system," read the summary of the official document, signed by the director of the Temporary Populations Division in the Population Administration, Michal Yosefoff, according to the report.

However, official sources in Jerusalem claimed the Population Authority's investigation was conducted recklessly and without talking to senior members in the country's Ethiopian community who could attest to the immigrants' Jewish roots.

Whether these families are Jewish or not, they will remain in the country, senior government sources reportedly said.

 This article was first published by i24NEWS.

The post Report: Ethiopia's PM says Israel evacuated war criminals appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Israel will evacuate the families of Israeli diplomats stationed in Ethiopia due to the escalating civil war in the country, the Foreign Ministry announced Saturday.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

According to the ministry, the diplomats themselves will continue to work in the country, however, due to the unpredictability of the situation, most of their family members will be evacuated.

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said they were keeping a close eye on the events and were in touch with the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry and other countries who have missions in the African country.

"For the safety of the people, I will not go into more details," he said.

The ministry also issued a travel warning for Ethiopia. Already on Wednesday, it issued an advisory against non-essential travel after the Ethiopian government declared a state of emergency. With the civil unrest disrupting communications, traffic and even flights, the ministry called on Israeli citizens staying in Ethiopia to leave immediately.

Meanwhile, lawmakers urged for the extraction of Ethiopian Jews. Aliyah and Integration Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata called on the government to take immediate action.

Every additional day of stalling could come at a heavy price, she said.

Similarly, Labor Secretary-General Eran Hermoni said the "government must launch an emergency rescue operation to bring them [Ethiopian Jews] to Israel due to the deteriorating security situation in the country. The Israeli government cannot abandon our brethren in Ethiopia whose lives are in danger."

The war in Ethiopia erupted a year ago, with rebel forces from the northern region of Tigray now making their way to capital Addis Ababa, after successfully overtaking several key towns on the way. There were reports of massacres of Ethiopian soldiers and civilians by the rebels.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has called on the residents to arm themselves to defend their neighborhoods amid expected escalations.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Israel to evacuate families of diplomats in war-stricken Ethiopia appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Top UN officials warned the Security Council on Friday that more than 400,000 people in Ethiopia's Tigray were now in famine and that there was a risk of more clashes in the region despite a unilateral ceasefire by the federal government.

After six private discussions, the Security Council held its first public meeting since fighting broke out in November between government forces, backed by troops from neighboring Eritrea, and TPLF fighters with Tigray's former ruling party.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

Acting UN aid chief Ramesh Rajasingham told the council that the humanitarian situation in Tigray had "worsened dramatically" in recent weeks with an increase of some 50,000 in the number of people now suffering famine.

"More than 400,000 people are estimated to have crossed the threshold into famine and another 1.8 million people are on the brink of famine. Some are suggesting that the numbers are even higher; 33,000 children are severely malnourished," he said.

The post UN warns of worsening famine, more clashes in Ethiopia's Tigray appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.