Panafrican News Agency (Dakar)

Ethiopia: UN High Commissioner for Refugees Visits

9 April 2001

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Rud Lubbers, was due in Addis Ababa Monday for a four-day visit, his first since being appointed head of the UNHCR in January 2001.

An UNHCR press release said Lubers would meet the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, the OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim, and representatives of International donors and the UN agency's partners, on refugee issues in the region.

It is estimated that the number of refugees in Ethiopia has drastically decreased from one million 10 years ago, to some 198,000 today.

Official figures show there are 121,000 Somalis, 72,000 Sudanese, 3,276 Eritreans and some 450 refugees of various other nationalities in Ethiopia.

UNHCR repatriated 52,000 Somali-Ethiopians and 4,700 Kenyans in 2000, while close to one million displaced Ethiopians have been able to return home from May 1991.

Lubers, a former Prime Minister of Netherlands, would also visit the Camaboker refugee camp in Ethiopia, where some 22,349 Somalis receive UNHCR/Ethiopian government protection and assistance.

Tagged: East Africa, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan

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