The Portuguese government is following with “great interest and concern” the security deterioration

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is following with great interest and concern the developments of the situation in Ethiopia, in particular taking into account the security conditions of the staff in charge of our diplomatic missions in that country and of the African Union, as well as the twenty. Portuguese citizens are there,” the office of Augusto Santos Silva said in a note sent to Lusa.

The ministry added that the Portuguese embassy in Addis Ababa is “in constant contact” with these citizens and “measures have been taken to secure appropriate support for them, if the situation requires it.”

The government also revealed that it “closely coordinates, on the ground, with other EU member states and with international organizations” and that the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs “is personally monitoring this process, and directly” with the Portuguese embassy in Addis Ababa.

The United Nations has begun withdrawing the families of its international staff deployed there from Ethiopia, a process that must end today, and European capitals such as Paris and Dublin have called on their nationals to leave the country “without delay”, at the latest. The time when the fighting approaches the capital, Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, ordered the federal army on November 4, 2020 to invade Tigray and expel the local authorities of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which had challenged his authority for months, and which the then prime minister accused of attacking federal military bases in That state, an argument justifying the invasion.

Abiy declared victory three weeks later after capturing the regional capital, Mekele. But last June, the state army of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front took control of most of the area and continued its offensive in the neighboring states of Amhara and Afar.

In late October, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front claimed to have captured two major cities in Amhara, which the Ethiopian government denied.

Meanwhile, the TPLF has allied itself with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) – the opposition formation to the Abi Ahmed regime, which also took up arms and claimed this week to be in Shewa Rubet, 220 kilometers northeast of Addis Drink.