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THE DEPARTMENT OF Foreign Affairs has advised Irish citizens in Ethiopia to leave “immediately” due to “the deteriorating security situation” in the country.
The Ethiopian government informed Ireland’s embassy in Addis Ababa earlier this week that four of the six Irish diplomats stationed there must leave the country within the week. Ireland’s ambassador and one other diplomat have been permitted to stay.
According to a statement from the Department, Ethiopian authorities indicated that the decision was due to Ireland’s position on the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia, articulated at the UN Security Council.
The Irish embassy in Addis Ababa remains open, and its focus will be “the provision of consular services, although the reduction of our diplomatic staff numbers by two thirds will inevitably affect our ability to fully provide such services,” Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said in the statement from the Department.
He added: “We recommend against all travel to Ethiopia and Irish citizens in Ethiopia should leave the country by commercial means immediately.”
‘Dangerous situation’
Speaking to RTÉ news this afternoon, Coveney said that “for many months now … Ireland has been shining a spotlight on things that have been happening in Ethiopia that really are breaches of international law.”
He added that Ireland has led many of the political debates within the Security Council on the need for the UN to intervene, and to expose human rights abuses that have been happening there. “In particular, the use of sexual violence as a tool of conflict — which is essentially mass rape,” he said.
“We really are at the edge of a very, very dangerous situation, not only for Ethiopians, but also for their neighbors,” Coveney said, adding that Ireland has been and continues to be extremely vocal of this issue.
“Unfortunately, the Ethiopian government has taken that as Ireland speaking against them, that is not what we have been doing,” he said.
“We are in favor of Ethiopia staying together, not splitting, but we will also call out breaches of humanitarian law and human rights abuses when they happen.”
Ethiopia is Ireland’s largest development partner and has received €165 million in development and humanitarian support in the last five years, according to the Department.
“We remain committed to the most vulnerable people in Ethiopia. Ireland was the first country to commit funds to mitigate the humanitarian consequences of the crisis as it began last year,” it said in the statement.
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Ethiopian airlines use Dublin as fuel stop for their flights to the US. They should be immediately banned from doing so.
@a: that would require testicular fortitude
@a: and why would we depart from our historical position of allowing all commercial flights refueling rights in Irish airports? We allowed Aeroflot and several US carriers over the years.
Ethiopia and Ireland are both signatories of the
“INTERNATIONAL AIR SERVICES TRANSIT AGREEMENT”
which allows Ethiopia Airlines makes fuel stops in Ireland
We cannot just go breaking agreements as we depend on them as well.
https://www.icao.int/secretariat/legal/list%20of%20parties/transit_en.pdf
Do they know it’s Christmas?
@Adrian O’Donnell: someone get Geldoff to ask for a refund?
@This time its personable!: all Geldof did was hand over the dosh,which was then turned into Guns ?
@This time its personable!: It’s a well known fact that Ethiopian Airlines, the State owned airline used to charge the foreign aid agencies to bring donated aid to the starving people of their country onboard their aircraft.
If only we had a hardened tactical airlift plane to go and pick them up. I guess it’ll be bumming a lift off the French again. Merci beaucoup.
@Eoin Roche: why would we need to airlift people out when they’ve been told to get commercial flights out.
@larry bird: Cos they were told to do the same from Kabul, until it became impossible, and we know how that went. You’ll see in the article that Ireland are persona non grata as regards the current Government in Addis Ababa.
@Eoin Roche: Except that we still have an embassy there. For now. I hope they can leave in good time.
@Eoin Roche: lol paint made but they can just get a direct flight to Dublin these days,
Cut off the development and humanitarian support and they’ll soon change their minds.
The Prime Minister of Ethiopia got the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, and now presides over the destruction of his country.
@Des O’Leary: Same as yer one in Myanmar. The Nobel committee have picked some right tulips.
Any Irish citizen staying in Ethiopia after this is staying for commercial reasons I expect.
Tough trousers if the TPLF cut !inks with Djibouti and food supplies get scarce.
@John Kinsella: they have been warned- no rescue flights
@Jonathan O’Riordan: I hope so.
Close our embassy there and inform the Ethiopian government that we may consider nudging the EU towards siding with Egypt in the dam dispute that will have them open to dialogue.
Simon Coveney was on RTE 1 earlier and said we spent something like 240 million last year in Ethiopia. No wonder they are kicking us out
Why is Ireland so interested in Ethiopia all of a sudden?? What is in this for Bilderberger Simon?? Don’t see him jumping up and down over tennis stars going missing in China.
The African Union is not doing much they are sitting back quiet and observant with all this going on.
@andrew: Why wouldn’t they. Steady income flow. Arms delivered free of charge to their front door and to their corrupt ‘leaders’ and no obligation to their people. And overseas bank accounts with billions in them. It saddens me that the U.N. etc has forsaken these people and countries like Ireland and the aid agencies are just propping up these regimes and the African Union has just accepted this as the norm. Until the mechanism’s are in place to start implementing a permanent solution led by the African Union and U.N. we should just leave and stop donations.
What’s happening in Ethiopia and what position has Ireland articulated at the UN Security Council?
@Dec: don’t be committing any genocide now, ye wee scamps in the Ethiopian government. They aren’t amused.
People of planet earth told to leave immediately
have your say