Ethiopia offers reward for information
Ethiopia offers a 10 million birr ($260,000) reward to a person with information on the positioning of fugitive leaders of the rebellious force in the northern region of Tigray, the federal government said on Friday. The reward to help capture leaders of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) was announced on state-run broadcaster EBC and later tweeted by the government's taskforce on the Tigray crisis.
TPLF leaders, believed to be hiding in the mountains because the capital of the region was captured by federal forces on Nov 28, have said they are fighting back. Reuters has not been able to reach them for comment for greater than a week. Thousands of individuals are believed to have already been killed and practically a million fled their homes during air strikes and ground battles in Tigray last month.
The conflict has raised concerns among Ethiopia's international allies about the possible destabilisation of Africa's second most populous nation. EUROPE has postponed practically 90 million euros in budget support payments to Ethiopia as a result of bloc's concerns over the crisis, according to an internal EU document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
Ethiopia, host to the African Union headquarters, is a diplomatic heavyweight in a volatile region and its own troops are valued for his or her service in peacekeeping missions in Somalia and South Sudan.Federal troops seized Tigray's capital Mekelle on Nov. 28 and now control the major towns in the region. Some power and telephone links were restored earlier this week in Mekelle after a virtual communications blackout because the federal offensive started out on Nov. 4.The communications difficulties have managed to get difficult to verify accounts from all sides.
