{"id":94375,"date":"2017-06-26T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=94375"},"modified":"2017-06-22T12:45:35","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T11:45:35","slug":"no-walls-in-ethiopia-rather-open-doors-even-for-its-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/06\/no-walls-in-ethiopia-rather-open-doors-even-for-its-enemy\/","title":{"rendered":"No Walls in Ethiopia, Rather Open Doors\u2014Even for Its Enemy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Eritrean teenagers and young men, aged from 16 to 20, waiting at the Badme entry point to be moved to the screening registration center.
Credit: James Jeffrey\/IPS<\/p><\/div>\n

22 Jun 2017 \u2013 <\/em>It\u2019s one thing to read about the exodus of souls flowing out of Eritrea, it\u2019s quite another to look into the tired eyes, surrounded by dust and grime, of a 14-year-old Eritrean girl who\u2019s just arrived on the Ethiopian side of the shared border.<\/p>\n

She is carrying a scruffy plastic bag. Inside are a few clothes, an orange beaker, and a small torch whose batteries have nearly run out.<\/p>\n

With her are four men, two women and five younger children, all of whom crossed the Eritrea-Ethiopia border the night before. Ethiopian soldiers found them and took them to the town of Adinbried.<\/p>\n

The compound of simple government buildings where they were dropped off constitutes a so-called entry point, one of 12 along the border. It marks the beginning of the bureaucratic and logistical conveyor belt to assign asylum status to those arriving, before finally moving them to one of four refugee camps designated for Eritreans in Ethiopia\u2019s Tigray region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us four days traveling from Asmara,\u201d a 31-year-man among the group says about their trek from the Eritrean capital, about 80 kilometres north of the border. \u201cWe travelled for 10 hours each night, sleeping in the desert during the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February 2017, 3,367 Eritrean refugees arrived in Ethiopia, according to the Ethiopian Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA). There are around 165,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in Ethiopia, according to the UN refugee agency.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia\u2019s open-door policy is in marked contrast to the strategies of migrant reduction increasingly being adopted in many Western societies.<\/p>\n

And its stance is all the more striking due to the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments forever accusing the one of plotting against the other amid an atmosphere of mutual loathing.<\/p>\n

But it appears the Ethiopian government is willing to treat ordinary Eritreans differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe differentiate between the government and its people,\u201d says ARRA\u2019s Estifanos Gebremedhin. \u201cWe are the same people, we share the same blood, even the same grandfathers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the same people; we share the same blood, even the same grandfathers.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>
\n\u00a0— Estifanos Gebremedhin, head of the legal and protection department for Ethiopia\u2019s Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before Eritrea gained independence, it was Ethiopia\u2019s most northern region. On both sides of today\u2019s border many people still share the same language\u2014Tigrinya\u2014as well as Orthodox religion and cultural traditions.<\/p>\n

Shimelba was the first Eritrean refugee camp to open in 2004. It now houses more than 6,000 refugees. About 60 percent of its population come from the Kunama ethnic group, one of nine in Eritrea, and historically the most marginalised.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no interest in going to other countries,\u201d says Nagazeuelle, a Kunama who has been in Ethiopia for 17 years. \u201cI need my country. We had rich and fertile land, but the government took it. We weren\u2019t an educated people, so they picked on us. I am an example of the first refugees from Eritrea, but now people from all nine ethnic groups are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discussion among refugees in Shimelba camp of governmental atrocities ranges from accusations of genocide against the Kunama, including mass poisonings, to government officials shopping at markets and then shooting stall owners due to disagreements over prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world has forgotten us, apart from the U.S., Canada and Ethiopia,\u201d says Haile, an Eritrean in his fifties who has been a refugee for five years. He says his father and brother died in prison. \u201cWhat is happening is beyond language, it is a deep crisis\u2014so why is the international community silent?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Eritrean soldiers\u2014now deserters\u2014arriving at the Adinbried entry point.
Credit: James Jeffrey\/IPS<\/p><\/div>\n

There are some, however, who argue the situation in Eritrea isn\u2019t as bad as claimed. A UN report<\/a> last year accusing Eritrea\u2019s leadership of crimes against humanity has received criticism for being one-sided, failing to acknowledge Eritrea\u2019s progress with the likes of providing healthcare and education, and thereby entrenching a skewed negative perspective dominant in policy circles and Western media.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is real, nothing is exaggerated,\u201d says Dawit, a Shimelba resident of eight years. \u201cWe have the victims of rape, torture and imprisonment in our camp who can testify.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 50 kilometres south of Shimelba is Hitsats, the newest and largest of the four camps with 11,000 refugees, of whom about 80 percent are under 35 years of age.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Sudan there are more problems, we can sleep peacefully here,\u201d says 32-year-old Ariam, who came to Hitsat four years ago with her two children after spending four years in a refugee camp in neighbouring Sudan.<\/p>\n

Refugees say the Eritrean military launches missions into Sudan to capture refugees who have fled.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia also hosts refugees from a plethora of other strife-torn countries. Its refugee population now exceeds 800,000\u2014the highest number in Africa, and the 6th largest globally.<\/p>\n

\u201cEthiopia strongly believes that generous hosting of refugees will be good for regional relationships down the road,\u201d says\u00a0 Jennifer Riggan, an associate professor of International Studies at Arcadia University in the US, and analyst of Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

Others point out how there is also an increasing amount of money involved with refugees. The likes of the UK and Europe are providing Ethiopia with financial incentives to keep refugees within its borders\u2014similar to the approach taken with Turkey\u2014so they don\u2019t continue beyond Africa.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, despite the apparent welcome given to Eritrean refugees, frictions remain.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople recognise the shared culture and ethnic background, and that helps for many things, but there\u2019s still distrust because of the 30-year-war [for independence],\u201d says Milena Belloni, an anthropologist who is currently writing a book about Eritrean refugees. \u201cThere\u2019s a double narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

While both sides talk of the other as brothers, she explains, historically Eritreans have looked down on Tigrayans\u2014based on them working as migrant labourers in Eritrea during its heyday as a semi-industrialised Italian colony\u2014while Tigrayans viewed Eritreans as arrogant and aloof.<\/p>\n

Either way, Ethiopia appears to be looking to better assimilate refugees by embracing the 2016 Leaders\u2019 Summit on Refugees<\/a>\u2014pushed by former U.S. President Barack Obama\u2014that called for better integration and education, employment and residency opportunities for refugees wherever they land around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cEthiopia\u2019s response is to manage the gate, and figure out how it can benefit from these inevitable flows of people,\u201d Riggan says. \u201cI definitely think Ethiopia\u2019s approach is the wiser and more realistic one.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 10 miles north of Adinbried the military forces of Ethiopia and Eritrea straddle the border, eying each other suspiciously through binoculars overlooking derelict military emplacements that serve as grim reminders of a former two-year war and ongoing fraught relations between the two countries.<\/p>\n

In 1998 Eritrea invaded the small and inconsequential-looking border town of Badme before pushing south to occupy the rest of Ethiopia\u2019s Yirga Triangle, claiming it was historically Eritrean land.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia eventually regained the land but the fighting cost both countries thousands of lives, billions of dollars desperately needed elsewhere in such poor and financially strapped countries, and sowed rancour and disagreement festering ever since.<\/p>\n

Because despite the internationally brokered peace settlement that followed the 2000 ceasefire ruling Badme return to Eritrea, Ethiopia still occupies it\u2014the government felt the Ethiopian public wouldn\u2019t tolerate the concession of a now iconic town responsible for so many lost Ethiopian lives\u2014and the rest of the Yirga Triangle jutting defiantly into Eritrea.<\/p>\n

While Badme hasn\u2019t changed much since those days\u2014it remains a dusty, ramshackle town\u2014it too is involved in current Eritrean migration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI crossed after hearing they were about to round people up for the military,\u201d says 20-year-old Gebre at the entry point on the edge of Badme. \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to go through that\u2014you\u2019re hungry, there\u2019s no salary, you\u2019re not doing anything to help your country; you\u2019re just serving officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Gebre are another 14 males ranging in age from 16 to 20 who crossed to avoid military service, as well as two mothers who crossed with two young children each.<\/p>\n

\u201cLife was getting worse, I had no work to earn money to feed my children,\u201d says 34-year-old mother-of-four Samrawit, who left two older children in Eritrea.<\/p>\n

She travelled with 22-year-old mother-of-two Yordanos, having met her at the Eritrean town of Barentua, about 50 kilometres north of the border, and the rendezvous point with their smuggler.<\/p>\n

Neither knows how much the smuggler earned for driving them to the border and helping them across: payment was organised by their husbands living in Switzerland and Holland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to make sure coming here is worth it before my elder two children come,\u201d Samrawit says.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 human-wrongs-watch.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethiopia also hosts refugees from a plethora of other strife-torn countries. Its refugee population now exceeds 800,000\u2014the highest number in Africa, and the 6th largest globally. \u201cEthiopia strongly believes that generous hosting of refugees will be good for regional relationships down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}