Diplomat: Ethiopian Refugees in Egypt Will Return Home Soon

The Ethiopian ambassador to Cairo, Markos Tekle, said Thursday that the fleeing of some Ethiopian refugees to Egypt following the conflict in the Tigray region is temporary, stressing that they will return to their home again.

"If some Ethiopian refugees come to Egypt, their presence here will be temporary, and they will soon return," Tekle said, in an interview with the Russian "Sputnik" agency.

[caption id="attachment_185804" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] The Ethiopian ambassador to Cairo, Markos Tekle- File Photo[/caption]

The ambassador noted that "Even the (Ethiopian) refugees in Sudan will return to their country, because the military operation in the region (Tigray) is temporary, and the government has placed most of the region's areas under control and has now opened humanitarian corridors to provide support and assistance, so we hope that these refugees will return to their homeland. soon".

He also added that he had "provided an explanation to the Egyptian Foreign Minister on the situation in the Tigray region."

"Cairo has expressed its desire to support peace and stability in Ethiopia, so that both countries can cooperate on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the Nile River issues in many aspects,” Tekle manifested.

Moreover, he also stressed that "the military operations in Tigray were far from the region in which the Renaissance Dam (Benishangul-Gumuz region) is located in and did not directly affect it."

On November 4, the Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, ordered air strikes and sent the army to the Tigray region, after he accused the "Tigray Liberation Front and its forces and affiliated militias" of launching an attack on the northern military base, in an operation he described as a high betrayal of the homeland.

Thus, the war that the Ethiopian army fought against the forces and militias of the Front reached the capital of the region.

Later, the federal government began the last phase of the process of enforcing the rule of law in the region, and pursued the leaders of the front in the mountains, while the battles in the region caused a wave of mass displacement of thousands of people from the war zones to the borders with Sudan and Eritrea.