Protesters have been chanting in ‘Hands off Ethiopia’ Ethiopia’s capital, calling for the international community to stay out of the country’s internal affairs.
The protest is coming on the heels of international concern about the conflict in the Tigray region, which erupted in November.
But the demonstration in Addis Ababa was not as large as expected given the calls made on government-affiliated media and various social media platforms for people to turn out.
The protest organisers had planned to submit letters signed by civil society organisations, religious institutions, and political parties, to different embassies in the capital. However, they were not successful as the embassies were closed.
The US embassy in Addis Ababa had announced on Thursday that it would cancel its consular services because of the planned protest.
With the conflict in Tigray in its seventh month, the US, the EU, and several international agencies have been calling for an end to hostilities and for Eritrea to remove its forces from Tigray.
The UN says 5.2 million people in the Tigray region are in need of food assistance.
‘Humanitarian access in Tigray remains unpredictable with increased incidents of denial of movement to relief cargo and the confiscation of humanitarian vehicles and supplies by parties to the conflict,’ a recent statement from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said.
But Ethiopia’s foreign ministry spokesperson rejects this.
“Humanitarian access in the Tigray region has been adequately addressed and the country cannot accept any dictates from outside on how to manage its own internal affairs,” Dina Mufti said on Thursday.
The conflict erupted when Ethiopia’s government launched an offensive to oust the region’s then ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK