ICERAS

“This morning, a plane carrying 32 tonnes of UNHCR emergency aid from our global stockpiles in Dubai landed in Khartoum”, said spokesperson Babar Baloch. “Another airlift is scheduled to leave Dubai on Monday with an additional 100 tonnes of additional relief items…In total, we plan to send four airlifts.” Growing exodus Since the start of fighting in […]

Operational context In 2019, the protection and working environment in Eritrea remained extremely challenging. Relations with the Government of Eritrea remained strained, with cooperation increasingly conditional on UNHCR repealing its eligibility guidelines for assessing the international protection needs of asylum-seekers from Eritrea.  UNHCR’s access to refugees and operational activities in Eritrea were tightly constrained as […]

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is appealing to the federal authorities in Ethiopia for urgent access in order to reach Eritrean refugees in the Tigray region who are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance and services. Concerns are growing by the hour. The camps will have now run out of food supplies – making hunger […]

ackground The armed conflict which began late 3 November 2020 in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, and the subsequent military offensive ordered by the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Ethiopian Defense Forces (EDF) against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), continues unabated. On 7 November, the Ethiopian Parliament voted to dissolve the Government of the Tigray Region. […]

Key Developments SUDAN ▪ UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi is in Sudan from 26-29 November to meet with government officials and partners along with visits to Hamdayet reception center and Um Rakuba camp. ▪ More than 43,000 Ethiopian refugees have crossed into East Sudan where humanitarian actors continue to expand assistance and seek to meet […]

CSW has joined eight other organisations and individuals in writing to various officials of the United Nations (UN) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights urging them for urgent assistance for Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where a violent conflict has been taking place since 4 November. The letter informs the addressees, among them the UN […]

Among those most at risk are 96,000 Eritrean refugees sheltering in four camps in Tigray, cut off from desperately needed relief supplies. “We are surrounded by war, and we can’t move,” one Eritrean refugee told The New Humanitarian from Mai-Aini camp. Unlike most places in the region – where communications have been blacked out by […]

Source: Fides Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia now face the risk of being repatriated. The government of Addis Ababa no longer considers them in need of humanitarian protection. Ethiopia no longer plans to welcome women, children and men fleeing the Asmara regime in refugee camps (unless they are somehow linked to the Eritrean armed forces). Abba Mussie […]

ERITREA 2019 The use of and indefinite military conscription, amounting to forced labour, continued despite an agreement to end the protracted border dispute with Ethiopia, a dispute the government had used to justify prolonged national military service. Thousands were prevented from travelling abroad without government permission, or due to repeated border closures. Eritreans fleeing the […]

. Worldwide Eritrean Refugee Population and Protection. As of the end of 2018, UNHCR counted 507,300 Eritrean refugees receiving protection under its mandate worldwide – up from 486,000 a year previous – thus sustaining Eritrea as the ninth largest country of origin for refugees.  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: “Global Trends: Forced Displacement 2018.” These were […]