Nairobi, Nov. 16 -- Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed personally intervened to have two staffers of the African Development Bank (AfDB) freed from detention, the lender said on Thursday.

The incident had happened on October 31, but the bank did not confirm it until Thursday this week. The identity of the officials was not given. Although grapevine had it that two staffers of the bank had been involved in a public fight with a senior government official in Ethiopia, leading to their arrest.

In a statement, the AfDB said the two were arrested, physically assaulted and detained "for many hours by elements of the security forces without any official explanation".

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