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From: TT
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Photo: Nariman El-Mofty / AP / TT
Civilians fleeing the fighting in Tigray into eastern Sudan.
About 30 Swedes or people living in Sweden have disappeared in the war-torn Ethiopia province of Tigray, but almost half of them have been located.
This weekend, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) declared that some 30 Swedish citizens or people who resided in Sweden a couple of weeks ago were in Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, where the conflict has grown more intense since then. .
Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the relatives managed to contact the people, something that was made more difficult by the fact that both the telephone and internet connections were turned off.
“Just half”
But by Monday, the number of missing had decreased.
– Just under half of these people have been able to leave the province in the last two weeks, says Julia Eriksson Pogorzelska, a communicator for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
TT: So now it’s about 15 people who couldn’t be contacted?
– That’s the assessment, she answers.
In early November, the Ethiopian regime launched a military offensive against the regional group of the Tigrinya People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
On Sunday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said the provincial capital of Mekele, with about half a million inhabitants, had been captured and that the offensive had ended like this. But TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael denied this on Monday, claiming the fighting continues.
“Get information”
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people are feared to die during the conflict and tens of thousands have fled to neighboring Sudan.
Many EU citizens have been evacuated from the region by UN convoys.
The Foreign Ministry has no information that any of the people associated with Sweden were killed or injured as a result of the fighting, says Eriksson Pogorzelska.
It highlights that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, despite the expired communications, continues to try to get in touch with the rest of the people connected with Sweden.
– We are also working to get information to Swedish citizens who are in Ethiopia in general.
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