Eritrea closes Ethiopia and Eritrea border crossing at Zalambessa and Senafe

Tigrai Online, Dec. 27, 2018

Eritrea closed the Ethiopia and Eritrea border crossing at Zalambessa and Senafe today without any official explanation.

The Ethiopia and Eritrea border crossing at Zalambessa and Senafe closed today without any official explanation from both governments. According to the local administrator of Gulomokeda Wereda on the Ethiopian side, Mr. Gebrehiwot GebreEyesus, the closure is only on the Eritrean side and the Eritrean soldiers deployed in the border don’t know the reason for sure, but they said the order came from above said Mr. Gebrehiwot in an interview with Tigrai TV.

Mr. Shushai Meressa the administrator of Eastern Zone of Tigrai said the border is not hundred percent closed but there is more restrictions. Ethiopians coming back from Eritrea and Eritreans going back from Ethiopia are allowed to go back to their own countries; however Ethiopians trying to enter Eritrea are prevented because they don’t have permission from the Ethiopian federal government to cross the border. At the same time Eritreans attempting to enter Ethiopia are also allowed to go to Ethiopia.

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Since the opening of the border in September hundreds of thousands of people have been crossing the border from both sides of the border. Thousands of people on both sides of the border have reconnected with their families they have not seen for 20 years. After the opening of the border hundreds of trucks and buses cross the border everyday carrying people, food, fuel, and other goods to Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Food items, like Taff, veritable, Finno, sugar, and spices, and consumer goods like fuel, timber, concrete, and many more items rationed in Eritrea were getting cheaper and the consumer market in general was starting to stabilize in the country.

The sudden closure of the border by Eritrea might baffle many people, but it is a last futile attempt by Abiy Ahmed and Isaias Afwerki to intimidate the people and government of Tigrai. It is not a secret Abiy and Isaias tried to encircle and force the people of Tigrai to surrender to the fake so called change in Ethiopia, but instead the people and the government of Tigrai became more united than ever. Abiy Ahmed Ali, Demeke Mekonnen Hussen Ali, Gedu Andargachew and their foreign masters tried to pressure Tigrai by creating none existing identity questions in the border areas of Tigrai which is adjacent to Agaw and Qemant lands occupied by Amara. This trick didn’t fetch the desired results, but it created more anger in the people Tigrai.

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Meanwhile the soft coup d'etat which brought Abiy Ahmed to become the accidental prime minister of Ethiopia is not soft anymore. The entire country is rocked by ethnic conflict and military confrontation broken out between the Oromo Libration Front – OLF and the Ethiopian government in Oromia state western Ethiopia. Over three million Ethiopians are displaced because of ethnic violence and the Abiy government is not able to insure safety and security of the country.

Abiy and his cohorts blame for every problem Abiy Ahmed Ali’s administration is facing in Ethiopia. Now, it looks like thy young naïve leader of Ethiopia is crying for help from his much older ally in Eritrea, but this adventure will be another disaster for both of them. 

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