Ethiopian Airlines transported weapons during war in Tigray and disguised them as ‘food stuff and refill’ in official documents in violation of international aviation law

Simon Ateba is Chief White House Correspondent for Today News Africa. Simon covers President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, the U.S. government, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other financial and international institutions in Washington D.C. and New York City.

Following a shocking investigation by CNN that concluded that the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali used Ethiopian Airlines, the country’s flagship commercial airline, to shuttle weapons to and from neighboring Eritrea during the devastating war in the Tigray region, the airline issued a rebuttal on Thursday.

Ethiopian Airlines admitted that the flights took place but added that “The mentioned air waybills in the CNN article clearly show that the nature of goods transported on the alleged flights was “Food stuff and Refill.”

“Ethiopian Airlines strongly refutes the recent allegations by CNN regarding the airlines’ involvement in transporting weapons,” the airline said in statement posted on its official Twitter page.

But CNN cited Cargo documents and manifests, as well as eyewitness accounts and photographic evidence, to conclude that “arms were transported between Addis Ababa’s international airport and airports in the Eritrean cities of Asmara and Massawa on board multiple Ethiopian Airlines planes in November 2020 during the first few weeks of the Tigray conflict.”