Trudeau's last overseas trip before the pandemic hit included a visit to Abiy Ahmed, then riding high on economic growth and a Nobel Peace Prize. Ethiopia moved into the top spot among recipients of Canadian aid in 2012 and has held first or second place every year since.Įthiopia put its foreign aid to good use and has prospered in recent years. Since 2000, Ethiopia has received more Canadian development assistance - just over $3 billion - than any nation other than Afghanistan. According to a readout of the call, he expressed "Canada's strong and ongoing commitment to supporting efforts to bring a peaceful resolution to the conflict."įor now, though, both sides are committed to a military solution and the guns are doing the talking. Today, Trudeau was on the phone again with the African Union's representative for the region, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. This week, with the front about 50 kilometres closer, he announced that he was heading there himself, leaving his deputy PM in charge.Īn African Union mission has arrived in the country to try to broker a peace deal that would require concessions neither side seems willing to make. "I underscored the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities, increased humanitarian access on an urgent basis and meaningful dialogue towards a peaceful resolution," Trudeau said.īut foreign admonitions seem increasingly irrelevant to a government that believes itself to be in an existential struggle.Įarlier this month, Abiy Ahmed called on Ethiopian civilians of fighting age to head to the front - then 270 kilometres from the capital Addis Ababa - to do battle to save the nation. The advisory came just days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called his Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed - one of several calls Ethiopia's prime minister has had to field lately from foreign leaders concerned about the fate of the world's twelfth most populous nation. The government of Canada is advising all Canadians in Ethiopia to leave the country immediately. The Tigrayan diaspora has mobilized effectively to promote Tigrayan independence around the world.
in June as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met other G7 leaders in Cornwall.