Through a statement, the National Defense Force assured that, in order to slander the Government and create divisions in the Army, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) disseminated false information about alleged repressions against Tigrayan soldiers.

The communication recalled that ” the November 2020 police operation responded to the Front’s attack against the Northern Command, with the purpose of derailing the ongoing reforms and regaining power through the disintegration of the country”.

He further noted that the TPLF infiltrated soldiers speaking their language into the Army’s Northern Command as part of the plan to attack the government forces.

For this reason, he explained, the combatants of that state remained in their homes, without affecting their salaries, in an attempt to avoid internal confrontations and to succeed in the operations to restore the constitutional order.

However, he clarified, Unisfa enlisted men continued to work because they did not pose a problem in their missions or a threat in the battle against the Front, which distributed false propaganda among those forces.

The rights and benefits of the soldiers forced to stay at home, and thousands of others who returned from international missions, are protected and when the conflict ends, they will work again, said.

Thus, the Defense Force reacted to reports that 528 soldiers in the peacekeeping mission in Abyei (area between Sudan and South Sudan) did not return to Ethiopia.

pgh/abo/mgt/raj