According to an internal UN email, Ethiopian authorities have detained more than 70 UN drivers, amid reports of widespread arrests of ethnic Tigrayans in the country.
The ethnicity of the drivers could not be determined. A UN spokesperson said on Tuesday that at least 16 UN staff members and their dependents had been detained in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The email stated that the detained drivers were in addition to the detained employees.
‘We confirm that 72 WFP (World Food Programme) outsourced drivers have been detained in Semera,’ a United Nations spokeswoman told Reuters, referring to the capital city of Afar’s northeastern region.
‘We are in contact with the Ethiopian government to learn more about the reasons for their detention,’ she added.
Legesse Tulu, the government’s spokesperson, and Dina Mufti, the foreign affairs ministry’s spokesperson, did not respond to a request for comment on the drivers’ detention.
When asked about the arrest of UN drivers on Tuesday, a UN spokesman in New York said that the organisation was looking into it.
Hundreds of reports of Tigrayans being arrested in the capital were received on Tuesday, according to the head of the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission
Police have denied making ethnically motivated arrests, claiming that they are only targeting supporters of Tigrayan rebels fighting the central government.
Last year, a war broke out between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which had previously dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition.
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