Ethiopian citizens who have fled to neighboring Sudan due to the reignited armed conflict in the northern Tigray region will be able to return home once the situation stabilizes, Ethiopian Ambassador to Khartoum Ybltal Amero said
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2020) Ethiopian citizens who have fled to neighboring Sudan due to the reignited armed conflict in the northern Tigray region will be able to return home once the situation stabilizes, Ethiopian Ambassador to Khartoum Ybltal Amero said.
"We try to resolve this issue. We believe that people who were forced to leave their homes over the conflict will be able to return back, when the situation in the west of Tigray starts to get back to normal," Amero told the Sky news Arabia broadcaster.
The ambassador also said that the current conflict in Tigray will not turn into a regional war. According to the Ethiopian authorities, the region's western areas are under control.
Around 32,000 people have already fled from Ethiopia to Sudan to find refuge, the United Nations refugee agency has said, warning that their number may grow to 200,000 in six months. Along with that, a source in one of the UN humanitarian agencies earlier told Sky News Arabia that the number of refugees stands at 40,000.
The fighting in Ethiopia's north broke out in early November after the Federal government accused the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the ruling party in Tigray, of attacking a local military base.
In response, the Ethiopian armed forces have launched an operation in the defiant region, with a state of emergency in Tigray being in place for a period of six months.
The TPLF has been in opposition to the incumbent government. In September, it asked the cabinet to hold local elections, which were earlier postponed over COVID-19. After getting a rejection, the party organized elections on its own, which the central government never recognized as legitimate.
