Ethiopian Airlines has dismissed reports by CNN that it transported weapons to the Eritrean port of Massawa from Addis Ababa in November 2020.
“The Ethiopian Airlines strongly refutes the recent allegations by CNN and would like to confirm that to the best of its knowledge and its records, it has not transported any war armament in any of its routes by any of its Aircraft,” the airline said in a statement last weekend.
It said the mentioned air waybills in the CNN article clearly show that the nature of goods transported on the alleged flights was “Food stuff and Refill” as declared on the document as per IATA standards.
“The alleged pictures are not known to Ethiopian Airlines.” The national carrier said.
“We would also like to confirm that we don’t have any employees suspended or terminated due to their ethnic background. There is no employee in Ethiopian Airlines suspended or terminated from our payroll due to their ethnic background. This can be verified from our Human Resources records,” it said
“Thus, we would like to assure all our passengers and the public that Ethiopian Airlines strictly complies with all International aviation related regulations & standards, doesn’t deviate from any civil aviation regulations in all its operations, it has never been engaged in any weapons transportation and kindly requests correction in this report,” the statement said.
MG/abj/APA