Ethiopian declares state of emergency after protests force prime minister’s resignation

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia announced a state of emergency on Friday, the day after the prime minister’s resignation, as pressure mounted on the country’s ruling coalition

The coalition decided emergency rule was “vital to safeguarding the constitutional order”, state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation said. The announcement gave no further details but the defense minister was expected to hold a news conference on Saturday morning.

Ethiopia only fully lifted its last state of emergency in August following months of curfews, restrictions on movement and the detention of 29,000 people.

Those measures followed two years of anti-government protests in which security forces killed hundreds of people in Amhara and Oromiya, the nation’s two most populous provinces.

The imposition of a new state of emergency may indicate that Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s resignation on Thursday was the result of tensions among the four parties in the ruling coalition.