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The detention and assault of two staff members “by Ethiopian security forces” in October prompted the African Development Bank (AfDB) to announce on Wednesday that it was removing its foreign employees from Ethiopia.
It claimed that at the end of October, two of its employees in Addis Ababa had been “unlawfully arrested, physically assaulted, and detained for hours without charge or any official explanation.”
“This was a gross violation of their personal diplomatic immunities, rights, and privileges,” the Abidjan-based bank said in a statement.
The AfDB office in the Ethiopian capital will remain open with local staff, it added.
The bank did not identify the two victims.
But two diplomatic sources in Addis Ababa have previously confirmed reports that the bank’s Ethiopia director Abdul Kamara was one of them and that he had since left the country.
“The situation is still not yet resolved in a satisfactory manner,” AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina was quoted as saying in the statement.
“The African Development Bank remains particularly concerned that the Ethiopian government has, to date, not shared with the Bank any report, or details of investigations into the incident,” Adesina added.
The Bank was created in 1964 to finance development efforts in Africa.
Apart from countries of the African Union, its membership includes about 20 non-African nations.
Its investments in Ethiopia as of the end of September came to $1.2 billion across 22 projects.
