ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia
The US embassy in Ethiopia has authorized the voluntary departure of non-emergency government staff and family members because of armed conflict, it said on its website, as rebel forces in the country’s north make advances.
The decision came after
the United States said on Wednesday it was “gravely concerned” about
the escalating violence and expansion of hostilities, repeating a call for a
halt to military operations in favour of ceasefire talks.
“The (State) Department authorized the voluntary departure of non-emergency US government employees and
family members of emergency and non-emergency employees from Ethiopia due to
armed conflict, civil unrest, and possible supply shortages,” the embassy said
in a statement.
Travel to Ethiopia is
unsafe and further escalation is likely, it said, adding “the government
of Ethiopia has previously restricted or shut down internet, cellular data, and
phone services during and after civil unrest”.
Government spokesman
Legesse Tulu did not immediately respond to a telephone call seeking comment on
the US embassy statement.
Speaking from Addis
Ababa, independent journalist Samuel Getachew told Al Jazeera that US-Ethiopian
relations have US soured in recent weeks as the rebel Tigray People’s
Liberation Front (TPLF) have made advances.
“The Ethiopian
government continues to accuse the US of siding with the TPLF. This comes in
addition to plans to cancel a US-Ethiopia trade agreement that creates
thousands of jobs in Ethiopia’s industrial parts,” he said.
On Tuesday, Ethiopia
declared a state of emergency, with forces from the northern region of Tigray
threatening to advance on the capital, Addis Ababa after claiming control of
key northern towns.
Jeffrey Feltman, the US
special envoy for the Horn of Africa, is expected to arrive in Addis Ababa to
press for a halt to military operations in the north and to seek the start of
ceasefire talks.
On Wednesday, Britain urged its citizens to review their need to stay in Ethiopia and consider leaving while commercial options were available.
Ethiopian Prime
Minister Abiy Ahmed, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2019, has pledged to bury
his government’s enemies “with our blood” as Tigrayan rebels and their Oromo
allies threaten to advance on the capital.
An earlier call to
“bury” the enemy in a statement posted on Abiy’s official Facebook page over
the weekend was removed by the platform for violating its policies against
inciting and supporting violence, the company said.
Tigrayan forces are in
the town of Kemise in Amhara state, 325km (200 miles) from the capital, a
spokesman for the TPLF, Getachew Reda, told the news agency Reuters late on
Wednesday, pledging to minimise casualties in their drive to take Addis Ababa.
Journalist Samuel
Getachew said it was difficult to determine whether rumours about TPLF fighters
moving on the capital was true due to conflicting reports.
“The Ethiopian
government has not even acknowledged the fall of Dessie and Kombucha to the
TPLF. [Meanwhile] there are news reports that TPLF soldiers are in the suburbs
of Addis Ababa,” he said.
Uganda’s president
Yoweri Museveni called on Thursday for an East African leader’s summit on
November 16 to discuss the conflict in Ethiopia, according to a Ugandan foreign
affair official.
A regional analyst in
touch with the parties to the war and who spoke to Reuters on condition of
anonymity said the TPLF was likely to hold off on any advance on Addis Ababa
until they secured the highway running from neighbouring Djibouti to the
capital.
That requires seizing
the town of Mille. TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said on Tuesday that Tigrayan
forces were closing in on Mille.
Urgent new efforts to
calm the escalating war are under way as a US special envoy visits Ethiopia and
the president of neighbouring Kenya called for an immediate ceasefire.
The lack of dialogue
“has been particularly disturbing,” Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a
statement, as the war that has killed thousands of people and displaced
millions since November last year.
The spokesperson for
Prime Minister Abiy, Billene Seyoum Woldeyes, did not immediately respond on
Thursday when asked whether the leader would meet with US special envoy
Feltman, who this week insisted that “there are many, many ways to initiate
discreet talks”.
But so far, efforts for
such discussions have failed. – Al Jazeera
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