Over two hundred regime soldiers desert the army, Metema goes up in flames as several people shot dead by TPLF forces

Metema on Wednesday

By Engidu Woldie

ESAT News (September 1, 2016)

An over 250 regime soldiers deserted the army in Sanja, Amhara region following a brief gun battle with local farmers. A source who spoke to ESAT on the phone said some of them have actually surrendered during the fight with the farmers. The soldiers deserted with dozens of artilleries and medium range rifles and have now sided with the locals who are fighting the TPLF forces.

The regime in the last two days have sent over 2000 soldiers and Agazi Special Forces to the Amhara region; but their journey came to an abrupt stop at Checheho, Gaint where locals demolished a bridge, halting the movement of the troops further into Gojam and Gondar where over 200 people were killed by the TPLF forces in the last few weeks of uprising.

In Metema, a border town with the Sudan, several houses belonging to officials and spies of the regime were set on fire. At least 10 people were killed and 20 others injured as regime forces shot indiscriminately at protesters.

In Debark, Gondar, 4 people were killed and 17 injured by TPLF soldiers who went on a revenge attack against protesters who on Monday set on fire a truck loaded with flour and oil heading to Tigray. On Wednesday, following a burial for the deceased, protesters set ablaze the houses of the mayor, the security chief as well as others who took part in beating protesters.

In the town of Gondar, 21,000 students of Gondar University left the campus and went home quitting classes for the rest of the semester in protest for the killing of two students by the regime and to show solidarity with the people of Gondar.

In Amba Giorgis, a town which saw the brutality of TPLF forces this week, a mother searching for her lost child was shot and killed in the street, igniting a gun battle between the militia and police on one side and the local farmers on the other. Eight police and 12 farmers were found injured after the dust settled in Amba Giorgis.

In Bahir Dar, farmers, whose land was given to foreign companies by the regime, set two horticultural farms and machineries on fire. There was an eerie of silence one minute and deafening gun shots in another in Bahir Dar on Wednesday where residents generally continued their stay-at-home protests.

Debre Markos, a town that is completely besieged by regime forces, residents have begun a five day stay-at-home protest.

Several towns and villages in the Amhara region have removed local administrations which were accountable to the regime and replaced them with interim administrations run by religious leaders and other respected members of the community.

Weeks of uprising in the Amhara region continues as the Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn said he had ordered regime forces to squash protests in the Amhara region in what many see as a war declared on the Amharas.

The chief of staff, Samora Yunis is in Gondar holding meetings with local officials, it was learnt. Close observers of the crises say the regime military officials might have mulled over setting a military administration in the Amhara region.