Kenya’s President arrives in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa

 

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta on Sunday arrived in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa for a visit.

 

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed confirmed Uhuru's arrival in a statement via Twitter.

"I welcome my dear brother President Uhuru Kenyatta to his second home," PM Abiy said on his Twitter account.

I welcome my dear brother President Uhuru Kenyatta to his second home. pic.twitter.com/bj6XCWDHXj

— Abiy Ahmed Ali 🇪🇹 (@AbiyAhmedAli) November 14, 2021

 

Uhuru's visit comes as Ethiopia continues to deal with armed conflict which has raged the country since November 2020.

 

Last week, Ethiopian authorities rounded up ethnic Tigrayans and United Nations staff in a mass crackdown on suspected supporters of Tigray Defense Force (TDF), according to people linked to the detainees.

Ethnic Tigrayan members of the Ethiopian army have been arbitrarily detained and held without charge for nearly a year, relatives say.

 

Simon, a 24-year-old ethnic Tigrayan resident of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, who changed his name for his safety, feels particularly uneasy on the year-long of the brutal war that has ravaged the northern Tigray region since last November.

 

His Ethnic Tigrayan father, a mid-ranking Ethiopian army officer with a three-decade career, has been held in custody without charge since his arrest in Addis Ababa two weeks after fighting erupted.

 

 Police denied targeting the Tigrayan ethnic group, saying those arrested were believed to have links to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which has fought central government for a year.

 

The conflict that broke out in November 2020 pitted the Ethiopian army and its allies fighters from the Amhara region and Eritrean troops – against forces loyal to Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s then-governing party. According to UN, unarmed civilians have suffered the brunt of the war, including massacres and rape, with hundreds of thousands of people facing “famine-like conditions”.

 

Ethnic Tigrayan Civilians have also been arbitrarily rounded up and detained in police stations, detention centres and military camps and unknown places across the country. The mass campaign has also seen ethnic Tigrayans dismissed from their jobs in the civil or security sector, forced to live their jobs, with authorities also shutting down a number of Tigrayan-owned businesses in the capital and across the country. The government has denied accusations of ethnic profiling but has described its operation as necessary to eliminate the TPLF, which has been designated a “terrorist” group last year.

 

The war has killed thousands, forced more than two million people from their homes, sucked in troops from neighbouring Eritrea and left hundreds of thousands in famine. Fighting has spread into neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions, threatening the stability of Ethiopia and the wider Horn of Africa.

 

Ethiopia declared a state of emergency last week as Tigrayan forces pushed south towards the capital Addis Ababa. That allows for indefinite detentions and requires citizens to carry ID cards that can indicate ethnic origin.

 

The United Nations said on Tuesday at least 16 Ethiopian staff and dependents were detained but has not specified their ethnicity. On Wednesday, it said nine were still in custody.

 

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said the arrests of Tigrayans - the latest in repeated waves documented by Reuters - were at least in the hundreds, including elderly people and mothers with children.

 

More than a dozen Ethiopian staffers working for the United Nations have been arrested in Addis Ababa in raids targeting ethnic Tigrayans under a state of emergency, UN and humanitarian sources told AFP Tuesday.

 

"Some of them were taken from their homes," one of the sources said, while a UN spokeswoman in Geneva said requests for their release had been submitted to the foreign ministry.