Leaked emails by US officials say that the Ethiopian government, citing national security grounds, insisted on holding and questioning US citizens from Tigray — a stance, they say, that caused Washington to abort plans to airlift Americans from the region last year…
The lucky few to escape the region, cut off from the outside world for two years as government forces battled Tigrayan rebels, told AFP they had been singled out and interrogated when attempting to leave.
Gebremedhn Gebrehiwot, an American citizen who made it out of Tigray earlier this year, said he was pulled aside and questioned at Addis Ababa’s international airport while trying to board a flight home.
“I had all the documents, there was no reason to stop me,” the San Diego-based deacon told AFP. He believed his “typically Tigrayan” name was the reason he was detained, After a 90-minute wait, he was finally allowed to leave.”I just ran to the gate and barely made it.”
Zenebu Negusse, 52, told AFP she too was targeted while attempting to board her US-bound flight, The Colorado-based caregiver, who was in Tigray visiting her elderly mother when the war began in November 2020, managed to escape the region by road and took shelter with relatives in Addis Ababa.
She took care to hide her Tigrayan tribal markings, afraid of being detained like some of her friends, but her name aroused suspicion, She said that after a harrowing interrogation last year during which she explicitly denied being Tigrayan, she was allowed to fly home.
Some who had been on her flight were intercepted and taken into custody, she said: “I was lucky. Many others were not.” AFP spoke to eight Americans who shared their stories and spoke of the plight of friends and family — US citizens or permanent residents — still in Tigray.
Ethiopia does not recognise dual nationality, meaning officials there can treat US citizens of Ethiopian descent as Ethiopians, regardless of their passport.
Suorce:- https://rfi.my/8zbe.
