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Lidia Girma, deputy head of Addis Ababa City Peace and Security department, told Reuters the government had acted against businesses connected to the TPLF.
“It wasn’t random and has nothing to do with ethnicity. It was based on investigations,” she said.
RESTAURANT WORKERS HELD
A Tigrayan resident of Addis Ababa told Reuters his family restaurant had been shut down last week, and his younger brother and their 80-year-old father arrested along with 25 employees.
They were released after two days, he said, requesting anonymity for safety reasons.
A Tigrayan woman said police came to her house in Addis Ababa before dawn on July 1, searched it, and took her to a camp in the city’s Kality district that is usually used for vagrants where she said hundreds of Tigrayans were being held.
Hundreds of Tigrayans detained in Ethiopian capital in recent weeks, witnesses say
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May 10, 2021
ADDIS ABABA – 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.
19 Min Read
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - 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.
Street trader Nigusu Mahari,?an ethnic Tigrayan who says he was arrested as he strolled along a street speaking in his native language, holds a phone to his ear at a coffee shop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, December 22, 2020. Police accused him of working with Tigrayan rebel fighters. He was released without charge, court records show. REUTERS/Stringer
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