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sarcasm
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Ethiopia’s crackdown on ethnic Tigrayans snares thousands (REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT)

Post by sarcasm » 07 May 2021, 08:25

Across Ethiopia, Tigrayans are being fired and jailed since fighting erupted in their home region. The tensions are complicating efforts to end one of the world’s bitterest civil conflicts and threatening the unity of the country.

Police arrested Tigrayan street trader Nigusu Mahari last year as he strolled along the traffic-clogged streets of Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. He says he was speaking on the phone in the language of his homeland, a distant region in the north.

Officers accused the broom hawker of planning a bombing, trying to overturn the constitution and working with Tigrayan rebel fighters. Nigusu professed his innocence. Six weeks later, a judge released him on bail without charge, court records show, after Reuters began inquiring about his case.

Nigusu is among thousands of Tigrayans swept up in a nationwide crackdown that started last November, when fighting erupted in Tigray between federal forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that dominated the national government until three years ago. Tigrayans themselves are a small minority in Ethiopia’s mosaic of more than 90 ethnic groups and nationalities.

“They arrested me from the street because I spoke Tigrinya,” Nigusu, 25, told Reuters. He said he was just one of three dozen from his home region in the same jail. “I saw 35 Tigrayans, and I told myself that this is not about the TPLF. It’s about the Tigrayan people.”

Authorities did not respond to questions about Nigusu’s case. Federal police spokesman Jeylan Abdi told Reuters that if innocent people are detained, they are swiftly released. Police have caught many TPLF supporters “red-handed with firearms and ammunition,” he wrote in a text message.


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