Six of the 18 Spanish tourists trapped in Ethiopia due to clashes between state security forces and the fano militias in the region of Amhara have landed after 1:00 p.m. this Monday at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport. “We are relieved,” one of them proclaimed in statements to journalists.
Three others have reached Valencia and the remaining nine will do so at Barcelona-El Prat Airportalthough, according to what the tourists who have arrived in Madrid have declared, they have suffered a small delay that will make them arrive later in the city of Barcelona.
This Saturday, the group of Spaniards landed in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababafrom Bahir Dara city controlled by the Army to which they were previously transferred from the hotel in Goodbye Zemen in which they had been trapped since August 2.
He Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Spaniard pointed out that the operation has been possible after intense negotiations between the Embassy and senior officials of the Ethiopian Government, including the Prime Minister’s Security Adviser, who have been asked to protect the group and send a military helicopter to take carried out the evacuation by air after verifying that the transfer by road was unfeasible due to cuts and the presence of militiamen and criminal gangs.
The conflict in Ethiopia broke out on August 1 in the tourist city of Lalibela and expanded throughout the Amhara region, making it difficult for Spanish tourists to leave due to the closure of the airports in Gondar and Lalibela, and preventing safe road transit to the capital of the African country.