Nima Elbagir, Her Yellow Journalism on Ethiopia is a Disgrace to CNN
Nima Elbagir, a Sudanese journalist who joined CNN in 2011 is now spearheading the proliferation of sensational hoax news as part of the global misinformation campaign on the situation in Ethiopia and the Tigray Region.
Using false and fabricated sources and doctored pictures, on her report entitled “Men are marched out of prison camps. Then corpses float down the river”
Ms. Elbagir started her campaign of deception and unethical reporting stating that the Ethiopian Defense Forces had massacred innocent persons and had thrown them into a river. She reported from a border town in Sudan on the 10th of September stating that:
“The ghostly outlines of limbs emerge through the mist along the Setit River in eastern Sudan. As the river’s path narrows, the drifting bodies become wedged on the salty clay bank and their forms appear more clearly; men, women, teenagers and even children. … the dead are Tigrayans.”
Nima Elbagir has no idea of the fact on the ground that terrorist TPLF had actually massacred hundreds of innocent citizens in Humera and buried them in common graves that are clearly visible for all to see in the town of Setit Humera.
She profiled the dead bodies on ethic lines in an appalling manner not expected from a journalist of her caliber. She mentions “men, women and children” in the remains of the bodies as if she has clearly checked on each body. The truth on the ground is that terrorist TPLF has collected the bodies of men, children and you persons it had killed and had thrown them into the river and prepared a fake video footage trying to show that the Ethiopian Defense Forces have committed such crimes.
Every responsible journalist knows by now that terrorist TPLF has been engaged in ethnic cleansing in Mai Kadra and Humera by deliberately massacring more than 1,200 daily laborers selectively on the basis of their ethic identity.
In her report she falsely accuses the Ethiopia government of deliberately starting the war stating that “Ethiopian government launched an offensive in the country’s northern Tigray region in November 2020” trying to hide the daylight fact that terrorist TPLF conducted a massacre on the defense forces of Ethiopia stationed at the Northern Command in Mekele on November 4, 2020.
In crafting her hoax news Nima Elbagir makes a grave mistake on the trend of events. She shamelessly lies and notes that;
“At the end of June this year, the balance of power shifted suddenly as Tigrayan forces recaptured the regional capital, Mekelle, and the Ethiopian government began withdrawing troops from the region. The fighting continued.
In the first place, the ENDF withdrew from Tigray not because it was defeated by terrorist TPLF which never “recaptured the regional capital Mekele” but entered the town in a vacant situation created by the withdrawal of the army due to the unilateral declaration of ceasefire issued by the government to create a favorable and peaceful situation for farmers in the region to till their land to avoid any level of shortage of food. Nima Elbagir mixed up and lied on the chronology of the facts.
On yet another piece of hoax news entitled Ethiopia used its flagship commercial airline to transport weapons during war in Tigray prepared by Nima Elbagir et al, CNN falsely accuses the Ethiopian government stating:
“Ethiopia’s government has used the country’s flagship commercial airline to shuttle weapons to and from neighboring Eritrea during the civil war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.”
Refuting the recent CNN report in a statement it issued a couple of days back, the Airlines stated that:
“Ethiopian Airlines strongly refutes the recent allegations by CNN regarding the airlines’ involvement in transporting weapons.
Ethiopian Airlines is a multi-award-winning global airline which is one of the senior members of IATA and member of Star Alliance for a decade, and which has been providing safe and reliable air transport service to the continent of Africa and the rest of the world for the last 75 years and that has been commended for its humanitarian and commercial operations in good and bad times. Accordingly, Ethiopian Airlines strictly complies with all National, regional and International aviation related regulations.”
Hence, Ethiopian Airlines strongly refutes the recent allegations by CNN and would like to confirm that to the best of its knowledge and its records, it has not transported any war armament in any of its routes by any of its Aircraft. 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” as declared on the document as per IATA standards. The alleged pictures are not known to Ethiopian Airlines.
This was not the first time that Ethiopian Airlines group was falsely accused of transporting weapons. A couple of weeks back, the company was accused of transporting arms to Sudan while in reality the weapons were not meant for armies but for hunting purposes with legal air way bills and permission from the Sudanese Ministry of Interior.
CNN’s recent misinformation campaign is indeed part of the international conspiracy to declare economic war on Ethiopia and to frustrate the country’s reform programs and democratic process in the country. The evidences attempted to be used by the CNN journalists are very weak and fake provided to it by TPLF cliques. It is a disgrace to have a broadcast of such baseless report by such internally acclaimed media. The reports are fully biased, unsubstantiated and entirely depicts the hidden personal interest of this Sudanese journalist. The purpose is to tarnish the image of Ethiopia and its icons like the Ethiopian Airlines just to intensify pressure being orchestrated by some members of the international community.
Source: Ethiopia News Agency