[ad_1]
Among the thousands of people fleeing the five-week conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region are a few dozen men, women and children from Eritrea, one of the most authoritarian states in the world.
They were already living as refugees in Tigray, which had long been a safe haven for them during years of conflict and repression in Eritrea.
But when the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a military operation against the ruling Tigray party, the Eritrean refugees’ illusion of safety was shattered as violence escalated around their camps.
“Suddenly the soldiers came to our camp and started shooting,” Kheder Adam told AFP in a Sudanese refugee camp. “The situation was very serious. There were many shots.”
Kheder and his family had originally settled in one of the refugee camps in the Sheraro area of Tigray, near the border with Eritrea, about two years ago, he said.
For years, Ethiopia and Eritrea had been officially in a state of war.
In 2018, Abiy took power, ending years of political dominance by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, sworn enemies of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki.
Abiy and Afwerki signed a landmark peace agreement that same year, earning the Ethiopian leader the Nobel Peace Prize.
After the dramatic change in alliances, Abiy’s forces launched their operation in Tigray on November 4, Eritreans who had long benefited from protection in Ethiopia appear to have become a target.
Since then, some Eritrean refugees have managed to escape to Sudan.
Meanwhile, the UN has expressed fear for the safety of those still in Tigray, home to some 96,000 Eritrean refugees living in four refugee camps.
– ‘Refugee again’ –
Kheder, 30, who was separated by recent violence from his wife and two children, ages three and one, was among several Eritrean refugees interviewed by AFP at a reception center for newcomers from Ethiopia in Hamdayit, on the border. eastern Sudan.
“Some of the soldiers were Eritreans, some of them were federal (Ethiopian) soldiers,” Kheder said of the attack on the camp in Tigray.
“They shot at all the people. At all: women, men, children,” he said.
His comments were echoed on Friday by a spokesman for the US State Department, although the Ethiopian government, a US ally, has denied the claim.
“I feel worried and sad to be a refugee again. There I was a refugee, and here I am also a refugee. It’s really difficult,” Kheder said.
He cited Eritrea’s notorious policy of universal and indefinite recruitment as one of the reasons why he fled his home country in the first place.
We were “forced” to undergo compulsory national service in Eritrea, he said. “So we decided to go to Ethiopia.”
The Eritrean regime once used its war against Ethiopia to justify its universal conscription system.
But the system remains despite the war ending in 2000, followed by the peace accord in 2018.
Human rights groups say that Eritrea’s national service often spans years and any act of desertion or perceived disobedience leads to jail time and torture.
– ‘Safe’ in Sudan –
Along with three dozen other Eritreans, Kheder has found refuge in the Hamdayit reception camp, and the camp authorities are keeping them separate from Ethiopian refugees.
According to the director of the camp, Yaaqoub Mohammad, the Eritreans, like the Ethiopians, are safe in Sudan.
But he is concerned about the Eritreans still in Tigray, after what he describes, citing the refugees themselves, as “an attack” on the refugee camps in Sheraro.
“The survivors fled for their lives. Some of them were able to reach Sudan, while we don’t know where the others are,” says Mohammad.
On Friday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said he was “deeply alarmed by the safety and well-being of Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia” caught up in the Tigray conflict.
“Over the past month we have received an overwhelming number of disturbing reports of Eritrean refugees in Tigray being murdered, kidnapped and forcibly returned to Eritrea,” it added in a statement.
Before the conflict, UNHCR and other aid agencies provided aid to Eritrean refugees in camps in Ethiopia.
But most UNHCR staff have since been evacuated for security reasons, and Ethiopia has restricted access to Tigray.
Speaking to AFP in Gedaref, a Sudanese town near the camps, UNHCR’s chief emergency coordinator Andrew Mbogori said Eritrean refugees are in a particularly difficult situation in Tigray.
“You can imagine, you are a refugee in a country and then this conflict in the country breaks out, so you find yourself in double trouble,” Mbogori said, adding that they were “encountering many difficulties.”
– ‘Live in peace’ –
Sitting on a bench in the scorching midday sun with other Eritrean refugees, Shishay Yacoubay, a 46-year-old man with a short goatee, says he arrived in Hamdayit just days after the violence broke out in Tigray.
Like Kheder, he does not know where his wife and four children are, although he believes they may still be at the Hitsats camp near Sheraro in Tigray, where they lived.
Shishay also said that Eritreans were among those firing on the camp.
“We were living in peace. But all of a sudden, Eritreans and federal soldiers came and started shooting at civilians,” Shishay told AFP through a translator. “So after that I fled the camp, separated from my family.”
On Friday, the United States said it believed Eritrean forces had entered Tigray and urged a withdrawal.
“We are aware of credible reports of Eritrea’s military involvement in Tigray and we see this as a serious development,” a State Department spokesman said.
But Ethiopia’s ambassador to the United States, Fitsum Arega, denied it, tweeting: “Repeat a lie often enough and it will become the truth!”
– Dissidents, deserters –
If confirmed, the presence of Eritrean soldiers in Tigray would represent a major change in a conflict that has already pushed nearly 50,000 people from Tigray to Sudan, according to UN figures.
With the reestablishment of relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea, Eritrea may no longer want Ethiopia to host dissidents or defectors, according to William Davison, principal analyst for Ethiopia at think tank International Crisis Group.
“Some of the Eritrean refugees who ended up in Ethiopia would have been recruited Eritrean soldiers who deserted,” he told AFP.
“It could be that the Eritrean government wants to punish them for leaving the army … Due to improved relations, the Eritrean government has gained more ability to influence the Ethiopian government so that it is not a host of dissidents.
Speaking to AFP from her home in Sweden, Swedish-Eritrean journalist Meron Estefanos also believes that evaders from military service are being targeted.
“The demographics in the camps, with many people (evading) Eritrean national service, makes them a target,” said Estefanos, who is monitoring the conflict through a network of Eritrean contacts.
Rahwa, a 19-year-old Eritrean woman with a red cotton patterned scarf over her hair and black khol eyeliner, says she arrived in Ethiopia in early 2020.
I was with a group of women and children inside a shadowy concrete shelter, a small improvement on the makeshift straw and wooden shelters and tents that tens of thousands of Ethiopians have made temporary homes in camps in Sudan.
“My parents are still in Eritrea and they want me to come back,” Rahwa said through a translator.
“But I don’t want to. If I go back, things won’t go well for me,” added the young woman, whom AFP identifies only by her first name out of concerns for her safety.
Because she dropped out of school, she would automatically be drafted into the military, she said.
“I don’t want to do that. No, I can’t do that.”
