A movie rescue to put an end to the nightmare. An Ethiopian army helicopter rescued this midday the 18 tourists and their guide, most of them Catalan, trapped in a hostel in northwest Ethiopia for ten days. After being taken to a military base early in the morning to await evacuation, a military unit airlifted the members of the group, including a minor girl and a man who needs heart medication. to the city of Bahr Dar, where they landed minutes before 1:00 p.m. The Amhara capital has an airport and it is expected that tourists will be able to go tomorrow by commercial plane to the capital, Addis Ababa. The group already has tickets reserved for their arrival in Spain on Monday morning.
A few minutes after landing in Bahr Dir, Noelia Bertran, the group's guide, explained to this newspaper, still at the airport, the group's emotion at being rescued by the Ethiopian military. “Many have exploded with nerves and in the helicopter we have cried with happiness. We are happy to finally be safe. When we arrived at Bahr Dir we gave each other a huge hug. Now we want to get to the hotel, take a shower and rest a bit before going to the capital tomorrow and be able to return home as soon as possible”. Bertan described the general relief at reaching a safe zone. “It's a huge break. We are not in Addis Ababa yet but it is one step closer. It was very brutal that they took us out in a military helicopter, but it was the only way because there was no security on the road. We feel enormous happiness, we are very happy”.
The Spanish tourists, who were surprised by a violent revolt by the Fano militia against the government, were forced to take refuge from the shootings and confine themselves since last August 2 in a roadside hostel with very deficient hygienic measures, with fleas, without water ordinary and with little food.
Although the initial plan was to organize a convoy of trucks from Bahr Dir, 90 kilometers south of the place where they were, an air rescue has been organized due to the insecurity in the area, where assaults and robberies have occurred on the highway in the last hours.
Miquel Ribas, director of Katanga, also expressed his satisfaction from Barcelona at the successful resolution of the incident. "Let's uncork a bottle of Moët
While the Spanish embassy in Ethiopia claims that it warned on its website that it was unsafe to visit the region, both the travel agency and tourists reject that version. According to Ribas, there was nothing to suggest that a violent riot of such magnitude could break out in the Lake Tana area, one of the most touristy in the country, in which its customers and employees were trapped. “Until August 4, when the Spanish embassy updated its website, there was no notice advising against visiting that region. There were warnings for the Tigray area in the north, but where everything happened is the most touristy area in the country and the proof is that there were several tourist groups from other countries in the region."
Inma de Blas, one of the tourists trapped, also flatly denied the accusations of irresponsibility. “I am very outraged that it is insinuated that we are bold or unconscious. Before coming we informed ourselves and there was no official warning not to visit that area. I think the authorities wash their hands and point at us. We know that the situation is complicated, but we have not done anything wrong”.
The Fano revolt, a term referring to volunteer guerrillas, rose up against the government last week, but tensions had been rising since April, when Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ahmed Abiy announced the integration of special forces. Regionals in the Army. The gesture of the Ethiopian executive was understood from the Fano side, which had fought alongside the government against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (FLPT) during the war between 2020 and 2022, as an attempt to control and disintegrate its power and influence. The Amhara discontent, violently crystallized by the Fano, is also based on a historical neglect and lack of representation in the government, despite the fact that it is the second most numerous ethnic group after the Oromo. One in four Ethiopians is Amhara.
Since coming to power in 2018, Abiy has faced several crises and demonstrations. Although he signed peace with Eritrea and released several imprisoned dissidents, gestures that earned him the Swedish Academy award and international applause, shortly after he launched a bloody war against the PTLF, whose ethnic Tigrays, despite representing only 6% of the population, had controlled the strings of political, military and economic power for almost thirty years. Although the Fanos supported the government during the conflict—their guerrillas carried out several massacres against ethnic minorities denounced by local human rights groups—their position was based more on hatred of the historic Tigray rival than on any real entente with the capital. Following the end of the war last year, feuds and attempts to control a group now well armed and experienced in warfare have surfaced.
