Ethiopia: Three dead in truck accident as soldiers for opposition group return from Eritrea

Photo: BBC Amharic

by Engidu Woldie
ESAT News (October 9, 2018)

Three soldiers for the Tigray People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM) have died when a truck carrying them got into an accident in Segeneyt, on the Eritrean side of the border.

Over 2000 soldiers for the TPDM, an armed opposition group based in Eritrea, were returning to Ethiopia as part of a peace deal with the government.

One of the trucks carrying the soldiers involved in an accident killing three soldiers while over twenty sustained injuries, according to a report by the BBC Amharic service in Ethiopia. But the report did not say if the truck was overturned, crashed with another vehicle; or if the accident was a result of other causes.

The injured have been taken to Dekemehari Hospital in Eritrea.

A report by FBC indicate that about 2,309 soldiers of TPDM have arrived in Zalambessa, on the Ethiopian side of the border.

The TPDM is one of several Ethiopian armed opposition groups based in Eritrea. It will be one of the last remaining armed groups to return to Ethiopia after an overture of peace by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government. Leaders of the TPDM, among leaders of other armed opposition groups that were based in Eritrea, had returned to Ethiopia in the last few months.