He is well and there are contacts to obtain his release: these appear to be the two fixed points in the ‘delicate’ case of Alberto Livoni, the Emilian humanitarian worker who ended up in the nets of hunting every possible “fifth column” of the feared Tigrinya siege of Addis Ababa . Livoni, who has been in custody since Saturday in a police station in the Ethiopian capital, is defined as “in good health” and is comforted by visits by the Italian consular authorities granted every day and not just every two as usual.
The 65-year-old is Coordinator for Ethiopia of “Vis” (International Volunteer for Development), an NGO that supports Salesians in schooling and professional training projects for young people and which is very active in northern Tigrè: it is the region for a epicenter year of the civil war waged by the premier, and paradoxically Nobel Peace Prize 2019, Abiy Ahmed, who had ventured to reduce the political weight of the warlike Tigers, for a quarter of a century in power in Ethiopia despite being a minority (5%) in the tangle of ninety Ethiopian ethnic groups.
The arrest of Livoni was carried out by security forces in his home in Addis Ababa after a raid and together with him two operators of the local staff of the Vis were arrested. The Ethiopian authorities want to ascertain why the Italian executive would have sold about 20,000 dollars to a person: even if no accusations have been formalized, the Ethiopian investigators suspect that the funds were used to help the militiamen of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (Fplt ) now set out to conquer the capital, and not just refugees. With the fate of the conflict reversed from the lightning victory proclaimed by Abiy a year ago to the Tigrinya announcements of the conquest of a city about 400 kilometers from the Ethiopian capital, the government has proclaimed a state of emergency: a measure that suspends the normal rules and they the one that limited the stops to 72 hours. “The situation, therefore,” is delicate “, as informed sources note.
With the clear intent of tracking down anyone who could revolt should the Tigers, and their Oromo allies, get even closer to the capital, Ethiopian authorities have unleashed a wave of arrests – hundreds, according to the Ethiopian Commission for Human Rights. Even employees of international organizations have not spared: 72 drivers who work for the World Food Program (WFP-WFP) in Semera, in the north of the country: and at least 16 Ethiopian UN employees, of which nine are still detained on Wednesday. But also prelates: the day before Livoni’s arrest, there was a raid on a nursery school run by the Salesians in Addis Ababa with the arrest of 17 priests, brothers and employees in the Center. An Italian missionary, Father Isidoro, was released in the afternoon but the other Ethiopians to date are still in custody.
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Source From: Ansa
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