A failed coup in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara regional state government
led to four people being killed, including Ethiopia’s Army Chief of
Staff and the head of an important region, the office of Prime
Minister Abiy Ahmed’s confirmed Sunday.
The incident began on Saturday evening in Bahir Dar, the capital of
Amhara, where the region’s President Ambachew Mekonnen and Amhara
Regional Government Office Advisor Ezez Wassie were killed from
gunshots.
Regional Attorney General Migbaru Kebede sustained heavy injuries and
is undergoing medical treatment, the Prime Minister’s office said.
Meanwhile in the country’s capital Addis Ababa, the Army Chief of
Staff General Seare Mekonnen and retired Major General Gezai Abera
were killed at Seare’s home by his bodyguard, the statement said.
Army Chief of Staff General Seare was coordinating a response to the
attack in Amhara when he was killed, the Prime Minister’s press
secretary Billene Seyoum told CNN Sunday.
Abiy blamed the attempted coup on a Brigadier General named Asaminew
Tsige and others. Tsige has been serving as the regional government’s
Peace and Security Bureau head after being given amnesty and released
from prison last year.
The situation in the Amhara — located in northwestern part of Ethiopia
and is one of nine regional states in the country — is now under full
control of the Federal Government, the statement added.
The Prime Minister “conveys his deepest sympathies and condolences to
the family and friends of the deceased,” it said.
Dressed in military fatigues, Prime Minister Abiy assured the public
during a televised press conference Saturday that the failed coup was
not “committed by any ethnic group but by ill-motivated individuals.”
He called on “all Ethiopians, both armed and not armed” to stand with
the government and provide information to “defend the unity of our
country.”
“A similar attempt was committed last year in June but we successfully
overcame it,” Abiy said in reference to a grenade attack at a rally he
attended in 2018.
On Saturday, the US Embassy in Addis Ababa issued a security alert
saying it was aware of shots being fired in the capital, as well as
violence in and around Bahir Dar.
Abiy came to power in 2018, following the resignation of Prime
Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, after years of anti-government protests
over economic and political exclusion, and led by the Oromo,
Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group.
Abiy, who is the first Oromo to lead the country, has led a remarkable
political transformation in the country. Abiy’s government freed
thousands of political prisoners, unblocked hundreds of censored
websites, ended the 20-year state of war with longtime enemy Eritrea,
lifted a state of emergency, and plans to open key economic sectors to
private investors, including the state-owned Ethiopian Airlines.
Ethiopia’s parliament even appointed the country’s first female
president, Sahle-Work Zewde, and the nation’s first Supreme Court
chief, Meaza Ashenafi, was sworn into office.
But his rule has also been marked by a rise in tensions between the
diverse country’s ethnic groups. According to Agence France-Presse
news agency, more than 1 million people have been displaced by ethnic
clashes.
