Human Rights Concern Eritrea (HRCE) has received credible reports from Eritrean eye-witnesses in Refugee Camps in Tigray of attacks, beatings and abductions by armed forces personnel. UNHCR officials at the highest level are expressing growing alarm at reports from refugees escaping from the camps to Sudan of refugees being attacked, soldiers impeding their flight, and refugees being taken away from their camps.
A constitutional dispute between the leaders of the Tigray Regional State, The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Federal Government of Ethiopia escalated into full-scale war last month when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the Federal army into Tigray to impose a state of emergency by force of arms. Federal troops now occupy the towns and the regional state’s capital city, Mekelle, but fighting has by no means ended. All communications have been severed within Tigray, so no news channels are open and all roads are closed to any traffic except the military.
Among those most at risk are 96,000 Eritrean refugees sheltering in four camps in Tigray, cut off from all desperately needed relief supplies of food and medicines. The only news getting out is therefore provided by mobile phones able to connect to networks in other regions or countries, and from testimony of refugees escaping over the border into Sudan.
Mai-Aini camp, located in southern Tigray, has some mobile phone coverage. Refugees said there was little food or fuel to run the camp’s water pumps even a week ago, and added that fleeing from the conflict zone had become almost impossible. “We are surrounded by war, and we can’t move,” said one Eritrean refugee.
Reports reaching HRCE from refugees at Adi Harush camp indicate that they have not received food or medical supplies. Armed individuals have apparently been entering the camp, threatening the refugees, and taking mobile phones and anything they find. There is shooting around the camps, and refugees are now so worried about their safety that they are trying to leave the camp, fleeing in any direction. Most disturbingly, the Eritrean army is apparently present around the camp, alongside the Ethiopian federal army.
According to credible eye-witness reports received by HRCE, it now appears that the Ethiopian military have stood by and allowed Eritrean military personnel to have free access to at least two of the refugee camps. It is reported around 6,000 Eritrean refugees have been abducted by the Eritrean military and are being forcibly returned to Eritrea. Some of the refugees were shot and wounded before they were loaded onto trucks without receiving any medical care. Soldiers are reported to have destroyed UNHCR records and seized all medicines at the Shimelba refugee camp. Some of the residents have escaped towards Humera, Gonder and Addis Ababa. News of the presence of Eritrean military in the camp has only come through refugees escaping from the camp and using mobile phones to contact those outside Tigray.
The UNHCR chief, Filippo Grandi, said on 29th November that he was “very concerned about the fate of nearly 100,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray , amid reports that some have been abducted”. If confirmed, such treatment of refugees in camps close to the Tigray border with Eritrea “would be major violations of international norms,” Filippo Grandi told reporters. “It is my strong appeal for the prime minister of Ethiopia for this situation to be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
Babar, Baloch, UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, said, “We continue to receive disturbing reports about the refugee camps in Tigray, which remain inaccessible…Our extreme worry is that we hear about attacks, the fighting near the camps, and we hear about abductions.” Refugees have said that soldiers and militia were trying to impede them from fleeing to Sudan.
Elizabeth Chyrum, Director of Human Rights Concern Eritrea commented:
“The protection of the four refugee camps in Tigray and their 96,000 Eritrean inhabitants is first and foremost the responsibility of the Ethiopian government. No one except authorised UNHCR staff and bona fide aid agency staff should be allowed to enter the camps at this time. No military personnel should be allowed into the camps, especially any Eritrean soldiers, from whom the refugees originally fled. To allow such military personnel into the camps violates all fundamental principles of humanitarian protection. To allow refugees to be abducted from the camps by military is to aid and abet an international crime.
We call upon the Government of Ethiopia: –
- to provide immediate and comprehensive protection to all refugees in the camps;
- to remove all Eritrean or other military personnel from the camps and exclude them from the areas surrounding the camps;
- to create safe corridors for UNHCR staff to return to the camps, with full access for food and medical supplies;
- To arrange for all foreign troops, and especially the Eritrean military, to withdraw from Tigray at once.
We call upon the international community: –
- To demand from the government of Ethiopia full protection for all refugees, in accordance with treaties and recognised international principles for the treatment of refugees
- To make urgent requests to the government of Ethiopia to facilitate safe access to international and unbiased media to the camps and to allow journalists from recognised news agencies to have reasonable access to inhabitants and staff.
- To strongly urge the government of Ethiopia to create safe corridors enabling UNHCR staff and supplies of food and medicines to reach all four camps.”
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE)
