Ethiopia reduces internally displaced significantly

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) - The number of internally displaced people went down to less than 100,000 from a staggering more than 2 million, said President Sahle-Work Zewde on Monday.

She was speaking this afternoon before members of parliament at the annual joint session of the House of People's Representatives and the House of the Federation.

The two Houses usually hold joint sessions after a three month rainy season sojourn. This is the beginning of the fifth and last year of the fifth term of parliamentary tenure.

A flare-up of ethnically motivated and instigated conflict led to the displacement internally of 2.3 million people in the last one-and-a-half years.

The number of internally displaced that had stood at a little more than one million before April 2018 jumped to 2.3 million after that time period, which is marked by a political transition ushered in by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who came to power in 2018.