Ethiopia

Ethiopia hosted approximately 245,000 refugees at the end of 1999, including an estimated 170,000 from Somalia, about 70,000 from Sudan, some 5,000 from Kenya, and about 1,000 from Djibouti.

More than 50,000 Ethiopians were refugees in neighboring countries at the end of 1999, including some 30,000 in Sudan, about 20,000 in Kenya, nearly 2,000 in Djibouti, and about 1,000 in Yemen.

An estimated 300,000 Ethiopians were internally displaced at year's end.

About 22,000 residents of Ethiopia were expelled from Ethiopia to Eritrea during the year, bringing the number of deportees to 67,000 during 1998-99. The citizenship of the deportees was a matter of dispute. About 50,000 of the 67,000 deportees lived in refugee-like circumstances in Eritrea after their expulsion from Ethiopia.

About 1,000 Ethiopian refugees who had fled the country in previous years repatriated during 1999.

War with Eritrea

Disagreements over the exact location of the border separating Ethiopia and Eritrea erupted into warfare in mid-1998 and continued during 1999.

The two countries deployed an estimated half-million soldiers to the disputed border. As many as 50,000 soldiers have died on both sides combined, in trench warfare reminiscent of Europe in World War I. Ethiopia, one of the world's most impoverished countries, reportedly spent the equivalent of $1 million per day on the war effort.

An offensive by Ethiopian troops in February seized a section of the disputed land after enormous loss of lives. Heavy fighting continued along the border until July before heavy rains forced a lull in combat. Mediation efforts by the U.S. government, the Organization of African Unity, and the United Nations appeared to push both sides to the brink of a negotiated settlement several times during the year, but a final peace agreement remained elusive.

Ethiopian authorities accused the Eritrean government of channeling weapons to opposition groups in Ethiopia, resulting in an unknown number of deaths in Ethiopia. Ethiopian troops responded by attacking Ethiopian insurgents based in neighboring Kenya and Somalia, according to numerous reports.

Deportations from Ethiopia

An estimated quarter-million persons of Eritrean descent were living in Ethiopia when the war erupted in 1998. Most had lived in Ethiopia virtually their entire lives, possessed Ethiopian identity documents, and considered themselves Ethiopian citizens of Eritrean heritage. The Ethiopian government also appeared to consider them citizens.

Ethiopian authorities suddenly began to deport residents of Eritrean origin in mid-1998 and continued the practice in 1999. The government expelled some 45,000 persons to Eritrea in 1998 and about 22,000 in 1999, including 3,000 during a two-day period in July.

Ethiopian officials charged that residents of Eritrean descent were a security risk and that the individuals had forfeited their Ethiopian citizenship by voting in Eritrea's referendum on independence in 1993.

"Many of the deportees were children and elderly persons who neither voted or conceivably posed credible security threats," Human Rights Watch charged. Most deportees reported that Ethiopian officials detained them for periods ranging from several days to five weeks before trucking them to the border with virtually no personal possessions.

The expulsions separated families and imposed serious economic hardships on landowners and business owners forced to sell their properties at discount prices before departing. Eritrean officials demanded that Ethiopia compensate deportees for their economic losses – a demand ignored by Ethiopian authorities.

Deportations from Ethiopia continued as the year ended. Informal survey interviews with the deported population conducted by UN workers and researchers suggested that about 70 to 80 percent of the deportees considered themselves to be Ethiopian citizens. The U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) therefore regarded them as persons living in "refugee-like" circumstances in Eritrea without full recognition as refugees.

Ethiopian Returnees from Eritrea

Some 20,000 Ethiopian citizens who had lived and worked in Eritrea for many years – they were not refugees – returned to Ethiopia during 1999. About 40,000 have returned from Eritrea to Ethiopia since the war began.

Ethiopian authorities charged that many of the Ethiopians were expelled by the Eritrean government. International observers disagreed, and charged that most Ethiopians were leaving Eritrea because of social discrimination and economic hardship linked to the war, rather than official persecution or expulsion by the Eritrean government.

Thousands of the most destitute returnees lived in camps with internally displaced Ethiopians while attempting to restart their lives in Ethiopia.

Uprooted Ethiopians

Approximately 300,000 Ethiopians were internally displaced from their homes near the Ethiopia-Eritrea border because of the war. Some sources estimated there were as many as 400,000 displaced persons.

Most uprooted families were subsistence farmers. The war disrupted their agricultural activities and aggravated the nation's drought-induced food shortage. Many displaced persons sought shelter in camps. Others moved in with friends, relatives, and strangers in the nearest safe village, imposing a burden for local residents attempting to feed and house them.

The massive population displacement created overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in several villages, aid workers reported. Humanitarian agencies alleviated overcrowding at some locations by belatedly distributing tents.

Some uprooted families, however, existed for months without shelter and lived exposed to the area's extreme heat, cold, and rain, according to an assessment by Refugees International. Aid workers reported that some uprooted families fled a second time to locations farther from the border to escape potential artillery bombardments.

Many displaced families had "no other significant reliable source of food" beyond aid handouts, the United Nations reported. The UN World Food Program (WFP) appealed to international donors for $24 million to feed some 270,000 displaced persons and the families struggling to support them. Donors had supplied less than half of the necessary funding by September, creating a shortfall of 16,000 tons of food aid. WFP temporarily suspended food distributions in October because of the shortfall.

The president of the UN Security Council urged Ethiopia and Eritrea in June to grant improved humanitarian access to conflict areas. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported in September that it remained unable to assess fully the needs of displaced Ethiopians because government officials restricted access to the border region. Despite the restrictions, aid workers reported at year's end that some 170,000 uprooted persons were receiving shelter, water, and at least partial access to schools.

After an Ethiopian military offensive gained control of a small section of disputed territory in March, limited numbers of displaced persons reportedly returned to the area, known as Badme, despite tens of thousands of landmines allegedly planted there by Eritrean troops. Between 10 and 26 returnees to the area died in landmine explosions.

Some 20,000 Ethiopians fled the country to Kenya during 1999. Many of them charged that discrimination and persecution of ethnic Oromos forced them into exile.

Repatriation of Ethiopian Refugees

Ethiopians who fled their country's civil war and other conflicts during the 1980s and early 1990s have gradually repatriated since 1991. An estimated 800,000 Ethiopians have returned to their home areas during the 1990s.

About 1,000 Ethiopian refugees repatriated by air from Kenya during 1999 with assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Organized repatriation of Ethiopian refugees from Sudan ceased in 1999.

UNHCR announced in September that conditions that had caused refugees to flee Ethiopia prior to 1991 had improved. The agency stated that, effective March 2000, refugees who fled Ethiopia prior to 1991 would no longer be considered refugees, except in special circumstances determined by individual screening interviews.

Refugees from Somalia

Somali refugees fled to Ethiopia during 1988-1995 to escape civil war in their own country. Nearly 90 percent of all Somali refugees in Ethiopia originated from northern Somalia, known as Somaliland.

Estimates of the actual number of refugees in Ethiopia have varied considerably over the years because of difficulties in conducting an accurate census and poor controls on the use of ration cards. An estimated 170,000 Somali refugees remained in Ethiopia at the end of 1999. Most lived in eight long-established camps in northeastern Ethiopia. Others lived in urban areas and in the remote southeast corner of the country. Some 10,000 new Somali refugees fled to southeast Ethiopia during 1999.

The largest Somali refugee camp, Daror, sheltered 34,000 persons. Three other camps each contained more than 25,000 residents. UNHCR and the government closed one refugee camp in February.

Camp residents received food, health care, and primary school education. Small loans provided by UNHCR enabled a limited number of refugee women to engage in small-scale commerce. Most camp residents, however, lacked employment opportunities and had no land for farming. Wealthier Somali refugees conducted active businesses.

Some 23,000 Somali refugees repatriated from Ethiopia during 1999. UNHCR began the year expecting that 60,000 Somali refugees would repatriate, but most refugees remained reluctant to return to their destroyed homeland and its severe economic problems.

The 23,000 who repatriated received from UNHCR nine-month food rations, plastic sheeting and water cans, and transportation grants equivalent to about $20 before departing Ethiopia. Some 72,000 refugees have repatriated from Ethiopia to Somaliland since 1997.

General banditry, old landmines left behind by Ethiopia's civil war, and local political tensions continued to afflict the residents of northeast Ethiopia, including Somali refugees and humanitarian aid workers. Highway ambushes victimized at least two international aid agencies during the year. UN workers operated under self-imposed security restrictions.

UNHCR charged that the Ethiopian government agency responsible for refugee policy, the Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA), operated with a "conflict of interest" because it supervised UNHCR activities while simultaneously receiving UNHCR funding. The ARRA has historically had a mixed record managing the country's Somali refugee camps.

Refugees from Sudan

Civil war in Sudan has pushed waves of refugees into Ethiopia since the 1980s, reaching a peak of more than 300,000 in 1991. Although the Sudanese refugee population has dwindled since then, refugee influxes have continued.

An estimated 10,000 new Sudanese refugees arrived in western Ethiopia during 1999, bringing the total in the country to 70,000.

The refugees resided at four camps largely divided along ethnic lines. The largest camp, Fugnido, housed 30,000 refugees, primarily ethnic Nuer. A second camp, Dimma, contained about 9,000 refugees, mostly Nuer. About 13,000 ethnic Uduk refugees lived at Bonga camp. Some 17,000 ethnically mixed refugees resided at the newest camp, Sherkole.

Residents of the four camps were overwhelmingly women and children, according to UNHCR. Bad roads, unreliable water supplies, and poorly controlled food distributions have hampered humanitarian aid to the refugee camps for years. Contaminated drinking water killed several refugees during 1999.

Government authorities prevented refugees from fishing, selling firewood, or engaging in regular employment that might have enabled them to become economically self-reliant. The camps offered minimal land for farming, leaving most camp residents dependent on humanitarian food aid for virtually all nutritional needs. Ethiopian authorities refused to make more agricultural land available to the refugee population, despite requests by UNHCR.

"Cases of detention, expulsion, and refoulement... of Sudanese refugees are becoming more frequent," UNHCR reported late in the year. Aid workers described the refugee population as highly politicized and prone to internal violence because of ethnic tensions among the refugees. As in previous years, violent clashes occurred within the refugee population in 1999, leaving some dead and scores injured.

UNHCR urged Ethiopian officials "to take appropriate action" to preserve the civilian character of the refugee camps to protect the Sudanese population.

Refugees from Kenya and Djibouti

Some 5,000 to 8,000 Kenyan refugees sought asylum in Ethiopia in 1993 to escape ethnic conflict in their home area. Most were ethnic Ajuran and ethnic Degodian.

Nearly 5,000 Kenyan refugees remained in southern Ethiopia in 1999. Several hundred attempted to repatriate with UNHCR assistance late in the year, but Kenyan officials barred their return at the last minute and expressed doubt about the refugees' Kenyan citizenship. The refugees returned by truck to their camp in Ethiopia. Discussions among UNHCR, the Ethiopian government, and Kenyan officials were underway to resolve the matter as the year ended.

An insurgency in Djibouti pushed an estimated 15,000 refugees into northern Ethiopia in the early 1990s. Most returned to Djibouti several years ago. WFP ceased food aid to the Djiboutian refugees in early 1999. Ethiopian officials reportedly conducted an informal registration of the remaining Djiboutian refugee population in May. About 1,000 reportedly lived in Ethiopia at year's end.

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