Ethiopia in campaign to see a million diaspora return home for Christmas holiday

The Ethiopian community in diaspora has been encouraged to return home and boost the country’s economy following the destructive attacks by the TPLF rebel group and the negative Western media campaign that encourages foreigners to vacate the country.

The call is being spearheaded by the Ethio-American Development Council an organization that fights for the rights of Ethiopian diasporas in USA through advocacy and lobbying the congress to ensure favorable laws and policies.

According to Nebiyu Asfaw, the co-founder for Ethio-American Development Council, there has been a disinformation campaign against Ethiopia by the West as well as the US Embassy in Addis Ababa has been telling US citizens to leave Ethiopia alleging that it is too dangerous to live in.

“They are telling American citizens to leave, they are churning out false information that the rebels are about to take over Addis Ababa .They are trying to isolate and demonize Ethiopia as a dangerous place and as a place of savages that kill each other,” Nebiyu said.

Nebiyu said  that with such a  negative and smear campaign that Americans started against Addis Ababa, Ethiopians came up with a campaign targeting one million Ethiopians to return home during the festive holidays.

“For this holiday season bearing in mind that Ethiopia’s Christmas happens on January 7th, we are going to have one million diasporas from Ethiopia travel home. This is basically to tell the world that Ethiopia is safe and to show that we are going to spend our money in Ethiopia to boost the economy,” Nebiyu said.

Nebiyu said that on top of encouraging diasporas to travel home civilians that are going home are asked to carry one extra bag with them full of items.

The items required are especially medical supplies as the country is in short of medicine and medical supplies since the TPLF rebels destroyed a number of hospitals and pharmacies in the war-torn region of Northern Ethiopia.

“The TPLF destroyed every hospital and pharmacies in the war tone region, so we are carrying medical supplies and medical equipment such as; painkillers, Minor Surgical sets, Gloves, Braces & Splints, Surgical Gowns, Walkers, Band-Aids, Crutches, Surgical masks, Urine bags among other items,” Nebiyu noted.

Nebiyu observed that the campaign is aimed at rebuilding Ethiopia by helping the people that are affected by war and this is done with the help of the Ministry of Health and the Ethiopian Airlines to handle logistics.

“People have started to travel; a lot of people are leaving this weekend and they are to travel all through January 7, 2022 which is the Ethiopian Christmas. All the diasporas will be in Ethiopia for this Christmas. It is  not only for Christians but we have earmarked it as a holiday with the major point to go home and spend the time to the new year with the people of Ethiopia as well as spending money there. We want to give a boost to the local economy.”

Speaking about the same, Rozina Negusei a Pan-Africanist and an Ethiopian- American said that it’s timely for all historical African diasporas to consider returning to Africa their credal land and help in building a strong continent.

“Africa is the hottest cake and that speaks to why all western countries including USA, Russia China are all embarking on investing in Africa as well as controlling the continent. We need to go back home at such a moment to save the continent from the self-seekers who may end up only plundering our resources and leave us in ruins,” Rozina said.

Rozina noted that the historical diasporas need to take home their expertise, knowledge, investments and money to help the African governments grow stronger.