The Ethiopian Army enters the town of the retained Spanish tourists, who hope to speed up their evacuation

“This morning we saw everything very black, but now things have changed.” Noelia, the guide of the group of 18 people who have been held for a week in northern Ethiopia, in the midst of the armed conflict, begins to relax. It’s Wednesday night in a rural town in Amhara, and the travelers have just finished dinner. Everything around him has changed in 24 hours. The militias that were holding them have disappeared and the Army has arrived in their place. Over the last few hours, the national troops have forced the rebel militias of Fano to retreat, facing the government of the country. “The soldiers have dismantled the parapets erected by the rebels, have removed the large stones from the road and have opened up traffic,” the young woman explained to EL PAÍS. The acting Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is advancing in the development of a coordinated exit with other countries and international organizations, according to a spokesperson.

The prospects seem much more favourable, although Noelia prefers not to claim victory. “We won’t know until tomorrow morning if the army really has the situation under control,” she analyzes. In a country that experienced an armed conflict in the Tigray region (adjacent to Amhara) between the end of 2020 and November 2022, and that declared a state of emergency in the region a week ago, stability seems like a chimera. The neighbors assure him that the worst is over and the guides and acquaintances who live in other towns in the region agree. “Tomorrow, after breakfast, we will see what decision we make.” Noelia is confident that buses and trucks will resume circulation on ordinary land routes and take advantage of mobility to get closer to the airports, which have also recovered activity, as reported by the Government on Thursday. The group hopes to have the protection of the Army and the support of local and international authorities.

The travelers have been held in a rural establishment that until 24 hours ago they shared with the militias. “They have treated us well,” says Noelia. The situation, however, has worried families, especially due to the shortage of medicines. A member of the group needs Sintrom, a drug against blood coagulation, and some travelers suffer from malaria. “The medication is running out and we are not in adequate sanitary conditions,” said Núria, one of the tourists, on the Rac1 station in the morning. “It’s full of fleas and mosquitoes, we don’t have running water and the food is very precarious,” she remarked. Fearing that the situation would worsen, the woman appealed to the authorities. “It is urgent that they hurry to get us out of here.” The first attempts (the intervention of the Red Cross or a humanitarian cordon) failed.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that, since August last year, the travel recommendations included on the department’s website advise against traveling to Amhara for security reasons. The last time these recommendations were updated was on August 4, when the Ethiopian Government’s decision to declare a state of emergency in the region was included, but the notice not to travel to the area was already included in the previous version. , April of this year, and had not changed since August 2022, according to the same spokesman. Miquel Ribas, operations director of the Kananga travel agency, which chartered the trip, affirms that “there was no record” of a recommendation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to avoid the Amhara area where his group is located. “We have already eliminated Tigray from the tour due to the situation that was being experienced, but we could not know that a conflict like this would occur. The first interested in avoiding problems are us, ”he alleges.

In a subsequent statement on Wednesday, Kananga points out that “in no case was the trip organized by areas where there was any armed conflict or news that it could occur,” according to the information they had. In addition, he assures that he had transferred to travelers the information established on the Ministry’s website on the travel recommendations applicable to the destination. Núria, through radio communication, reinforces this idea: “I consulted the Foreign Affairs page and I did not find any notice.”

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