The nine Catalan tourists and the guide who were part of the Kananga agency group who were trapped in Ethiopia Due to armed confrontations in the country, they have finally landed at the El Prat airport in Barcelona, ​​thus completing the return home of Ethiopian tourists after an unexpected adventure.

Another group of six tourists has returned without problems at noon via Madrid and, on Monday morning, the family of three members that completes the expedition also landed in Valencia.

It was the triple final stop on a journey back home that began for the 19 Spaniards with the helicopter evacuation to Bahir Dar last Friday and which also took them over the weekend to Addis Ababa, first, and to Istanbul, after.

From the Turkish city they have departed on different flights, depending on their city of origin, to Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona. Nuria, one of the travelers, and her daughter, María del Mar, expressed their joy at hugging each other again and highlighted, along with other members of the expedition, the role played by the dissemination of what happened in the media in order to be able to be evacuated. .

On August 2, the group of travelers from Kananga and the tourist guide They were on a truck route through northern Ethiopia when they were surprised by armed clashes between the Ethiopian Army and the Fano militias. In full crossfire, the group took refuge in a roadside inn in a village.

Since the start of hostilities, airports have been closed to air traffic and roads blocked, making it difficult for travelers to leave.

The Spanish embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have coordinated, together with other European governments and international organizations, the operation to safely remove Spanish tourists and other nationalities from the country.

“We were 15 in the same room”

On their arrival at the Madrid-Barajas airport, the six tourists in the group, organized by the Kananga agency, explained to the press feel a “great relief” after the uncertainty experienced during all these days.

Maite Jimeno, one of those affected, has recounted the experience and anguish they felt the day they declared a state of emergency in Ethiopia: “We were 15 in the same room waiting without knowing if the military were going to enter, because they said they were going to take the town and we feared that we could be victims of crossfire”.

As he explained, the announcement of the rescue was “sudden”since despite having tried to move to Bahir Dar in a bus, they were finally transferred by helicopter to evacuate them from the place due to the presence of a military settlement on the road.

The first of the evacuated group to be able to rest at home were the family of three members who landed this morning in Valencia, made up of Mauro Fernández, Tina Peris and their daughter, Patricia, 13, who were waiting for their brother of the woman and her nephew.

It has been a hard experience“And the biggest fear has been the safety of the minor, who has behaved “like a champion, with serenity and integrity, just like an adult”, although for now she does not want to return to Ethiopia after the “emotional ups and downs” she has experienced. the family had to live, Mauro told reporters.

Mauro has indicated that, as he himself has assured the embassy, ​​the website of this organization warned of the recommendation not to travel to the area “one day after” they alerted of the situation in northern Ethiopia, that is, on August 3, and not before.

The foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albaresexpressed this Monday his satisfaction at the success of the repatriation operation for Spanish travelers trapped in Ethiopia coordinated by the Ministry with the support of the Ethiopian authorities and Armed Forces.

In statements in Congress after being accredited as the new deputy, Albares congratulated himself on get “repatriated in perfect condition to a group of Spaniards” who were in “very difficult circumstances.

Albares, who has refused to give details of the extraction operation, has stressed that the travelers were in a region to which “for many months now the Ministry’s travel recommendations advised against traveling to the area for any reason.”

However, and thanks to the collaboration of the Ethiopian authorities and the country’s Armed Forces, the travelers were able to be evacuated from the danger zone and taken to Addis Ababa, from where they took commercial flights to return to Spain.