19 July 2007
Addis Abeba — UNHCR has begun relocating 4,000 Somali refugees to Teferi-Ber camp in eastern Ethiopia from an overcrowded makeshift settlement close to the border with Somalia, the UN Agency said in a media statement on Wednesday.
On Monday and Tuesday, a total of 1,043 people arrived, to the warm and loud welcome of the local population, at the UNHCR-run camp from Kebribeyah, some 120 kilometers to the south, and there will be a convoy every three days, UNHCR said.
"Praised be to Allah that I managed to escape the chaos and extreme violence of [the Somali capital] Mogadishu with my 10 children to enjoy such a rousing welcome," te statement quoted one of the refugees as saying.
It said she was part of a group of 4,000 Somali refugees recently granted refugee status by UNHCR and the Ethiopian government after fleeing fighting over the past year in central and southern Somalia between the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government and Islamist insurgents.
The refugees have been staying in Kebribeyah, which, the UN agency said, had limited room for expansion.
An estimated 7,000 additional Somalis are waiting to be screened for refugee status at other sites in eastern Ethiopia, the statement added.
"We looked at a number of options and found that although it is close to the border, Teferi Ber is the best location because there is water," explained George Menze, head of the UNHCR office in the regional capital, Jijiga.
The Teferi Ber camp was officially closed in 2001 after all the refugees returned, mainly to nearby Somaliland.
This has brought the total number of new asylum seekers to an estimated 23,000. In addition to the 4,000 recognized refugees and 7,000 asylum seekers in eastern Ethiopia, thousands more Somalis remain in remote, difficult-to-access border areas such as Dolo and Suftu in south-eastern Ethiopia.
Since April 2006, UNHCR has recorded a steady influx of Somali refugees into eastern Ethiopia.
The reopening of Teferi Ber reverses a trend which has seen the closure of eight out of nine refugee camps in eastern Ethiopia over the past few years and the gradual winding down of UNHCR's operations for Somali refugees in the area.
At the height of the Somali emergency in 1988, UNHCR was caring for more than 628,000 Somali refugees in Ethiopia, a figure which dropped to 10,365 by the end of organized repatriation to Somalia in 2005.
The camp at Kebribeyah today hosts 16,572 Somali refugees most of whom arrived in Ethiopia in 1991.
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