MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th January, 2021) Former Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin was killed on Wednesday during an operation by government forces in the country's conflict-torn region of Tigray, the Federal government said.
"Refusing to surrender to [Ethiopian National Defense Force] ENDF, Seyoum Mesfin, ... have been killed in fire exchanges undertaken with the criminal clique's personal security. Five key [Tigray People's Liberation Front] TPLF affiliated former army commanders have been apprehended," the federal government's State of Emergency Fact Check wrote on Twitter.
It added that Abay Tsehaye, the former minister of federal affairs and executive member of the ruling TPLF Central Committee, was killed alongside Mesfin.
The diplomat headed the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry from 1991 to 2010. After leaving the government, Mesfin served as ambassador to China. He was one of the TPLF founding members.
The situation in Tigray has been volatile since early November when the federal government accused the TPLF of attacking a local military base and launched a security operation. The government claimed to have captured the region's capital, Mekele.
On November 29, the Ethiopian government and the United Nations struck a deal to open Tigray for relief supplies for refugees displaced by recent fighting. The United Nations estimates that some one million people have been displaced by the fighting in Tigray, including more than 52,000 having escaped to eastern Sudan.
