He claims that the suspects planned the assassination of officials and senior officials of the Ethiopian government
5 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Ethiopian authorities have announced the arrest of several people who were part of “an undercover group” whose objective was “to instigate a conflict” through the assassination of officials and senior officials, at a time when the country is submerged in a peace process with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF).
The Addis Ababa Joint Security and Intelligence Force has indicated that this group intended to “instigate a nationwide conflict by carrying out attacks against senior government officials” in the capital and the cities of Bahir Dar, Adama and Dire Daua.
Likewise, it has detailed that this group would be made up of academics, media owners and activists from Addis Ababa and various regions, where they intended to group people in line with “religion, ethnicity and political radicalization”.
“They were planning to carry out a violent movement, declaring that they would free the population. They were working to plunge the nation into a crisis again,” the agency highlighted, according to the newspaper ‘Addis Standard’.
The Government of Ethiopia is in the middle of a peace process after the cessation of hostilities agreement signed in November 2022 in South Africa after two years of war in the Tigray region (north), a conflict that has deepened the serious humanitarian crisis in the african country.
The conflict in Tigray erupted in November 2020 after an attack by the TPLF against the main base of the Ethiopian Army, located in the capital of Tigray, Mekelle, after which Abiy ordered an offensive against the group after months of tensions at the political and administrative level. , including the TPLF’s refusal to recognize an electoral postponement and its decision to hold regional elections on the sidelines of Addis Ababa.
The TPLF accused Abiy of stoking tensions since he came to power in April 2018, when he became the first Oromo to take office. Until then, the TPLF had been the dominant force within the coalition that has ruled Ethiopia since 1991, the ethnically based Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The group opposed Abiy’s reforms, which it viewed as an attempt to undermine his influence.
