It is reliably reported that the Ethiopian authorities are rounding up hundreds of Eritrean nationals in the capital Addis Ababa and forcibly returning them to Eritrea. This rounding up of Eritreans began a few months ago. So far, over 450 have been deported and others have been detained, in preparation for deportation. The round ups continue.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says it is concerned about “forcible return of an estimated 200 Eritreans, including minors. Under international human rights law, the principles of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they could face torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment or other irreparable harm.”
In 2018, following the peace agreements between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the Ethiopian government stopped allowing Eritrean women and children to seek asylum in Ethiopia. All the women and children who have come to Ethiopia since 2018 therefore became undocumented asylum seekers, most of them destitute and lacking support.
For the past two years, the Agency for Refugees and Returnees Services (RRS) has stopped renewing the documents of Eritrean refugees’, and as a result, long-term Eritrean refugees have not been able to renew their asylum documentation, which is now out-of-date.
For the last two years, RRS has also refused to issue birth certificate and other necessary documents to the children of Eritrean refugees.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued guidelines to all governments in April 2009, which are still in force, opposing the return of rejected Eritrean asylum-seekers on the grounds of the Eritrean authorities’ record of serious human rights violations, stating that those forcibly returned faced “arrest without charge, detention, ill-treatment, torture or sometimes death at the hands of the authorities”.
However, the RRS does not consider it is breaking international law by forcibly returning Eritrean asylum-seekers to Eritrea. It officially declares that “none of the individuals who have been returned are refugees or asylum-seekers.” The RSS does not cite any actions, research, investigations it has undertaken or evidence it considered to ascertain whether these Eritrean “individuals” were genuinely in need of protection; nor does it mention any efforts it has made to ascertain the basis of each individual’s claim for asylum and protection. Instead, the RRS deliberately denied the claims of thousands of Eritreans asylum seekers.
Calling itself “Hands for Humanity”, the RSS admits that its duty is to “take immediate measures” …” of paramount importance to the persons of concern”. Yet it has taken no action, no “immediate measures”, to protect the rights of Eritreans fleeing danger in their country of origin.
The RSS is clearly not taking any steps to fulfil its fundamental duty to protect refugees from refoulement.
- Human Rights Concern-Eritrea (HRCE) condemns this action by Ethiopia’s immigration authorities, particularly the flagrant ignoring of international human rights law, and the disregard of the fundamental principle of non-refoulement of citizens to a country where they face torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment;
- HRCE demands that the immigration authorities in Ethiopia take immediate note of the findings of its own Human Rights Commission, and that it immediately stops all deportations until each asylum case has been reviewed and analysed in detail;
- HRCE appeals to the RRS and the Ethiopian government for Eritreans who came to Ethiopia to seek asylum to be granted sanctuary and asylum;
- HRCE appeals to the RRS and the UNHCR to jointly begin renewing the refugee status documents of Eritrean refugees;
- HRCE appeals to the United Nations and all its member states to put pressure on the Ethiopian government to adhere to international human rights principles in its treatment of Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers.
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE)
