UN: Ethiopia detains 70 drivers who deliver aid

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP):

Ethiopian authorities have arrested and detained some 70 aid-delivering truck drivers contracted to the United Nations (UN) and other groups in the past week, the UN said Wednesday, beginning when the government declared a state of emergency amid the country’s escalating war and growing famine.

It is the government’s latest slap at the world body after the recent expulsion of seven UN staffers and the detention of at least 16 local employees as tensions continue over what the UN has called a “de facto humanitarian blockade” on Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

Wednesday’s statement said the UN is seeking the reasons for the drivers’ arrests that occurred starting November 3 in the city of Semera, the gateway for aid convoys struggling to reach Tigray. Government spokesman Legesse Tulu did not respond to questions.

SWEPT UP BY THE THOUSANDS

On Tuesday, the UN said the 16 local employees had been detained in recent days in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. All are ethnic Tigrayans, who witnesses say have been swept up by the thousands since the state of emergency was declared in response to reports that Tigray forces who have been fighting Ethiopian forces were approaching the capital.

Government spokesman Legesse told AP that the 16 UN staffers were detained because of “participation in terror” unrelated to their work, without details. The government said it is detaining people suspected of supporting the Tigray forces.

UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric on Wednesday said at least nine of the staffers were currently held, and the UN had not received “any official explanation” for the detentions.

The new UN statement said the dozens of drivers detained are of “different ethnicities,” but they include Tigrayans.

The arrests are a further challenge to efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to millions of people in Tigray, which has not received badly needed aid supplies including food, medicines and fuel since the Ethiopian military began hitting the Tigray capital with airstrikes on October 18. Even before then, just 15 per cent of the needed supply-laden trucks had entered Tigray since mid-July, the UN said.

Some of the detentions of UN employees occurred even as UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths was in Ethiopia meeting Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other officials to press for more access. The UN called those talks “constructive.”