Bangladeshis trapped in restive Ethiopian region leave for capital Addis Ababa

At least 104 Bangladeshi workers of DBL Group have left the restive northern region of Tigray in Ethiopia after being trapped for 10 days amid clashes between federal troops and local forces.

They left the Tigray region for capital Addis Ababa with a convoy of the UN and the Bangladesh Embassy in the African country on Saturday, said MA Jabbar, managing director of DBL Group.

“We’ve been informed some time ago that the Bangladeshis are on their way to Addis Ababa with a UN convoy,” Jabbar said.

DBL, a leading Bangladeshi garment manufacturer, has booked hotel rooms in Addis Ababa for the workers. It is yet to be decided whether they will stay in the Ethiopian capital or return to Bangladesh.

Jabbar earlier said the company sought help from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to evacuate the workers.

The Ethiopian federal government blamed the ruling party in Tigray, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, or TPLF, for the latest attacks, Reuters reports. "The TPLF junta is utilising the last of the weaponry within its arsenals," the government's emergency task force wrote on Twitter.

Ethiopia’s federal government has declared war on Tigray, leading to fears of a protracted conflict in Africa’s second-most populous country. The Tigray region is one of 10 semi-autonomous federal states organised along ethnic lines in Ethiopia, and home mostly to the Tigrayan people who make up about 6 percent of Ethiopia’s population of more than 110 million.

Two airports in Amhara, also a northern state, were targeted by rocket fire late on Friday, leading to the escalation of violence.

DBL Group suspended production at its plant in Ethiopia. “We’re trying to find a way to remove the workers quickly,” Jabbar said.

The factory established by DBL in 2018 employed about 2,000 workers, including Bangladeshis and Ethiopians.

The DBL authorities said the workers had been evacuated to a safe place in the city after the clashes began. The situation worsened after a regional rebel group in Tigray attacked the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

One of the rockets hit the airport in Gondar and partially damaged it late on Friday, said Awoke Worku, spokesperson for Gondar central zone, while a second one fired simultaneously landed just outside of the airport at Bahir Dar, according to a Reuters report.

Debretsion Gebremichael, chairman of the TPLF and the state's president, said the airports were legitimate targets. "Any airport used to attack Tigray will be a legitimate target, not cities of Amhara," he told Reuters in a text message.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the 11-day-old war. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the national defence force on an offensive against local troops in Tigray last week, after accusing them of attacking federal troops.

An Ethiopian Airlines worker who did not wish to be identified said flights to both Gondar and Bahir Dar airports had been cancelled after the attacks.

Another resident of the area said the rocket had damaged the airport terminal building. The area was sealed off and firefighting vehicles were parked outside, the resident added.

The Amhara regional state's forces have been fighting alongside their federal counterparts against Tigray's fighters.

The United Nations, the African Union and others are concerned that the fighting could spread to other parts of Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country, and destabilise the wider Horn of Africa region.

More than 14,500 people have fled into neighbouring Sudan, with the speed of new arrivals "overwhelming the current capacity to provide aid", the UN refugee agency said on Friday.

Ethiopia's Human Rights Commission, appointed by the government but independent, said it was sending a team of investigators to the town of Mai Kadra in Tigray, where Amnesty International this week reported what it said was evidence of mass killings.