ESAT News (March 09, 2016)
A considerable number of people are leaving Dabat, north Gondar, to join the armed resistance groups in northern Ethiopia following a brutal crackdown by the Ethiopian security forces against the residents of Dabat who revolted against the minority government, according to a source who spoke on the phone with ESAT Radio on Tuesday.
The people of Dabat last week staged a protest blocking major roads leading to Debark, Shire and Mekelle. Residents of this north Gondar town are demanding for the TPLF, the clique ruling the country, to be removed from power.
The source said following last week protest, regime’s forces imprisoned dozens of people and those who dodged the arrest have left the town to join Patriotic Ginbot 7, an armed resistance group operating in northern Ethiopia.
The source said the people of Dabat had gallantly fought the TPLF during its days as a guerilla group in northern Ethiopia, and once it assumed power in Addis Ababa, operatives of the regime have been taking what the source said was retaliatory measures for the last 25 years.
He said the people in Dabat have also been resisting the annex of Wolkait-Tegede-Telemt to Tigray, an area which he said have always been part of Gondar and a sub region within Dabat.
Representatives of Dabat last week went to a meeting in Gondar and expressed their solidarity with the people of Wolkait-Tegede-Telemt in their struggle to assert their identity and return the land forcefully annexed to Tigray when TPLF took power 25 years ago.