Ethiopia announces a state of emergency

addis abeba - Ethiopia declared a state of emergency on Friday, one day after Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn filed his resignation. The country has been struggling for some time with unrest and a political crisis.

It is not yet clear how long the measure will remain in force. The ruling coalition met Friday and decided to impose the emergency measure, according to the Ethiopian state broadcaster. According to local media, the measures will not differ much from those of the previous state of emergency. At that time security forces from the army were deployed throughout the country and restrictions were imposed on freedom of expression and access to information.

The resignation of the Prime Minister followed a wave of strikes and demonstrations demanding the release of more opposition leaders. At the beginning of this year, the government started releasing 6,000 political prisoners in the hope that it would calm down their minds.

The previous state of emergency was lifted in August 2017. It was promulgated a year earlier after hundreds of deaths in large-scale riots.