The United States has again advised its citizens in Ethiopia to leave the volatile country as soon as possible citing ‘deteriorating security situation’.
The United States earlier this month urged its citizens in Ethiopia to leave and announced repatriation loans for those who do not have money for plane tickets.
“There are no plans to fly the U.S. military into Ethiopia to facilitate evacuations or replicate the contingency effort we recently undertook in Afghanistan, which was a unique situation for many reasons,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
Ethiopia declared a state of emergency on November 2, a year after conflict erupted between the federal government and forces aligned with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party controlling the northern region of the east African nation.
Last week, tens of thousands of Ethiopians rallied in Addis Ababa to support Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and to show the world that the city is safe as opposed to warnings from the US.
The Addis Ababa City Administration on Monday announced that a 32,000-strong militia, drawn from different parts of the city, are taking a basic military training to secure the capital.
Many Ethiopians believe the US’s move to withdraw citizens from Ethiopia is one of its strategies of sending “misleading disinformation against the reality on the ground”.
The latest pro-government protest blasted the Western media for broadcasting “fake news overstating rebel gains” and urged the US to “stop meddling” in its internal affairs.
They also urged the international media to eschew fake news regarding the ongoing situation in the country.
MG/as/APA