Over 200 Israeli citizens and Ethiopian Jews were relocated to Addis Abeba, the nation’s capital, using a special flight that Israel stated it had dispatched from two cities in the Amhara and Oromia regions affected by recent unrest.
Jewish residents number in the thousands in the Amhara region.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that he had ordered the evacuees to be removed from fighting zones and that they would travel to Israel.
Despite recent violent clashes between the army and local militias, relative quiet is still being reported in the largest cities in the Amhara region.
The army claimed to have recovered control in important areas, but local militias, according to residents of some smaller cities and rural areas, are still in command.
In the meantime, the US and the UK have joined forces with Japan, Australia, and New Zealand to voice their concerns on the deteriorating security in Ethiopia.
Recent violence in the Amhara and Oromia regions of the country “have resulted in civilian deaths and instability,” according to a joint statement made on Friday.
Prior to this, the UN’s Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia expressed its “deep concern” over the current unrest and urged the government to follow “the principles of necessity, proportionality, and non-discrimination” in enforcing a state of emergency that had been declared in response to the violence.