Ethiopa: Seven detained Tigrayan nuns released

Food distribution camp near Alitena, Tigray ©ACN/Magdalena Wolnik

Source: Fides

Seven Tigrayan nuns arrested by Ethiopian security forces in November last year have been freed and are reportedly in good health.

Fides reports that Sisters Letemaryam Sibhat, Tiblets Teum, Abeba Tesfay, Zaid Moss, Abeba Hagos, and Abeba Fitwi of the Daughters of Charity and St Vincent de Paul, and Ursuline Sister Abrehet Teserma, were released on Saturday 15 January.

The sisters were abducted on 30 November. Two deacons arrested with them and two nuns from Kobo, in Ethiopia's Amhara region, are still detained along with thousands of ethnic Tigrayans, and Eritrean refugees, suspected of supporting the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

In the crackdown against suspected rebels, a number of Catholic religious and lay people have also been arrested.

On 5 November, a Salesian education centre in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa was raided by military forces, and 17 religious and lay people were taken away in a van. They were released on 13 November after been interrogated.

War broke out in Ethiopia on 4 November 2020, after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, launched an offensive against the separatist Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) following an attack against federal military bases. Ahmed promised a swift victory, but the fighting has escalated into a widespread conflict involving ethnic-based militias as well as Eritrean armed forces, with reports of serious human rights violations on both sides.

During the Christmas period, the TPLF declared a unilateral ceasefire and its withdrawal from the Amhara and Afar regions in what the group called a gesture of willingness to start negotiations. The situation however, still remains very tense, and the humanitarian crisis in Tigray continues to grow, with seven million people with no food, healthcare, medicines and electricity. A famine has been officially declared in the region.