The African Union has sent home its security head – an Ethiopian national after the Ethiopian government accused him of disloyalty to the county amid conflicts that threaten to destabilize the Horn of Africa.
The office of the bloc’s chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat, ordered the sacking of Gebreegziabher Mebratu Melese in a memo dated November 11 that was reviewed by Reuters.
The order follows a November 10 letter from Ethiopia’s defense ministry questioning his loyalties.
An African Union official confirmed the authenticity of the two letters to Reuters as reported by CNN. The ministry of defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ground combat together with airstrikes between Ethiopian troops and local forces in the Tigray region have killed hundreds, causing ethnic tensions and sending refugees flooding the neighboring country, Sudan.
The clash began on November 4 after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an offensive after accusing Tigray’s leaders of ordering an attack on a federal military base as well as defying his authority.
Ethiopia’s ministry of defense mentioned the conflict in its letter to the African Union and describing Gebreegziabher as a “Major General” not committed to the AU nor the Ethiopian government.
It was not immediately possible tp confirm the ethnicity of Gebreegziabher.
According to the Ethiopian government, it had arrested about 150 “criminal” operatives for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in the capital Addis Ababa and other regions on suspicion of planning “terror attacks” by Thursday.
READ MORE:
- Ethiopia shuts down the phone, internet services to the Tigray region
- Ethiopian Army blamed for crashed Kenyan Plane
- China bans Ethiopian Airlines flights from its airspace
- Ethiopians Suffer Displacement Crisis due to COVID-19 Pandemic
“Ethnically targeted measures, hate speech and allegations of atrocities occurring in Ethiopia are deeply worrying,” the European Union said in a statement on Thursday as reported by CNN.
