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Sudan: UN Re-Starts Stalled Repatriation of Refugees From Western Ethiopia
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UN News Service (New York)
26 February 2008
Posted to the web 26 February 2008
The United Nations refugee agency has resumed its repatriation of Sudanese from a camp in western Ethiopia after the operation had been halted for nearly two months because of bureaucratic problems.
A convoy of vehicles carrying 605 people left Ethiopia's Bonga camp for Sudan's Blue Nile state at the weekend, expecting to reach their destination by today, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported. Almost two thirds of the group were aged under 18.
UNHCR hopes this convoy - the first of its kind since 29 December - will lead to the resumption of regular repatriations from Bonga to neighbouring Sudan, where the long-running north-south civil war ended in early 2005.
Cosmas Chanda, UNHCR's deputy representative in Ethiopia, said that the agency plans to close Bonga - currently home to about 5,000 refugees - and another nearby camp, Dimma, which houses over 2,600.
The plan is to conduct weekly convoys from Bonga and also start convoys of returns from Dimma and the other two camps in the area, Sherkole and Fugnido.
Returnees receive a repatriation package of blankets, jerry cans, sleeping mats, a water filter and a sanitary kit for females. When they pass the Ethiopian-Sudanese border crossing at Kurmuk, they will also receive plastic sheets, mosquito nets, buckets, kitchen utensils and soap.
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In addition, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) distribute three months of food, seeds and agricultural tools to the returnees once they reach their destination in Sudan.
Ethiopia's war on its own By Ronan Farrow, Los Angeles Times February 25, 2008 DADAAB, KENYA -- When Ethiopian government forces swept through his town in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, burning huts and killing civilians. "The young girls were the first to die. The soldiers shot them and gathered the bodies and burned them," he said. "When they came to my home, they strangled my father with a wire and hung his body in a tree. Then they shot me and left me for dead." In October, Human Rights Watch warned that... [Read Full Text]
Ethiopia's war on its own
By Ronan Farrow, Los Angeles Times February 25, 2008
DADAAB, KENYA -- When Ethiopian government forces swept through his town in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, burning huts and killing civilians. "The young girls were the first to die. The soldiers shot them and gathered the bodies and burned them," he said. "When they came to my home, they strangled my father with a wire and hung his body in a tree. Then they shot me and left me for dead." In October, Human Rights Watch warned that events in... [Read Full Text]
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