July 16, 2002

UPDATE ON CONDITIONS OF ETHIOPIAN REFUGEES IN NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES

Repeated appeals to the main UNHCR and its local branches have all been futile and the condition of Ethiopian refugees in the neighboring countries continues to worsen. The recent protest demonstration by refugees at the Kakuma camp (police killed at least three people in connection with the protests), in Kenya, highlights the deplorable conditions in which Ethiopian refugees find themselves in.

 An arbitrary decision by the UNHCR to withdraw the refugee status from thousands of Ethiopians exiled in the Sudan has also compounded the problems of Ethiopian refugees in the Sudan who recently wrote an open letter to visiting UN secretary general Kofi Anan and demanded protection. The government in Addis Abeba has collided with the local UNHCR to aggravate the plight of the refugees and to engineer forced repatriations. If refugees in the Sudan and Kenya are thus deprived of protection, the ones in Djibouti do not fare any better. More than 350 of them are languishing in the notorious Gabode prison. In all the neighboring countries, the refugees have had to face brutal beatings, rape, and some have been murdered outright. The menace of deportation hangs over all of them like the sword of Damocles.

Ethiopian refugees are entitled to protection by the UNHCR but this has not been the case in many instances. The government in Addis Abeba has been trying persistently to cause problems and difficulties for the refugees and deprived of the protection by the UNHCR the hapless refugees have been victimized in more ways than one. This has to end.

SOCEPP calls again on the UNHCR to give due protection to Ethiopian refugees in the neighboring countries.

SOCEPP