By Engidu Woldie
ESAT News (September 8, 2016)
The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU) announced on Tuesday that no funds from the Emergency Trust Fund (ETF) were transferred to the Ethiopian regime due to it worsening human rights abuses in recent months.
EurActiv, an online news media focusing on EU quoted a spokesman of the Commission as saying that “no monies were channeled directly through the government in Addis Ababa, or any government agencies.”
The ETF was set up last year, at the Valleta migration summit, in an attempt to mitigate the ‘pull’ factors behind uncontrolled migration from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe, in the wake of the migration crisis, EurActiv recalled.
“Since November 2015 – when Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker signed the ETF – some 400 people have been killed by Ethiopian government security forces during protests,” the report said quoting according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.