Stay-away protest in Gondar enters second day, protesters free political prisoners

ESAT News (August 16, 2016)

As Ethiopians in all corners of the country continued their demand for the removal of a dictatorial rule, a stay-away protest in Gondar entered its second day on Monday with government offices and businesses remained closed and transportation services put on a halt.

Residents of Gondar stayed in for the second day turning this historic town that is hit with protests against TPLF rule into a ghost town.

TPLF cadres used public announcement systems to encourage people to resume normal businesses but to no avail.

Meanwhile in Amba Giorgis, north Gondar, a meeting called by local authorities turned into a protest rally where protesters went to the local prison and freed three prisoners held by the regime in recent days of protests. Those who spoke on the phone to ESAT said they would continue their fight till all prisoners were released and demands were met. They said they had enough with the TPLF despotic rule.

An elderly woman whose spoke to ESAT called on the Ethiopian defense forces to stop shooting at the people and instead side with the people.

The number of peop

le killed in cold blood by the regime’s forces in Gondar last week could not be exactly known but people with connections to hospital sources say the figure could hit over a hundred.

In Bahir Dar sources said 55 bodies have so far been counted at the town’s hospitals. Several of the deceased were buried as per the instruction of local authorities as the bodies could not be identified or loved ones did not claim them.

Protests against the minority despotic rule have been intensified in the last two weeks in the Amhara and Oromo regions. The response from the regime has so far been deadly.