Ethiopia Revamps Support for Refugees

With more than one million registered refugees, Ethiopia is the third-largest refugee-hosting country on the African continent. The Government of Ethiopia continues to provide access to asylum seekers through its open-door policy, which it has maintained for many years.

Ethiopia adopted its Refugee Proclamation in 2004, which is the main national legislation governing refugee issue. Refugees continue to arrive mostly from South Sudan, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, and Yemen. Most refugees are granted prima facie refugee status, and the majority of the refugees are accommodated in camps, in which only a smaller percentage of the refugee population is permitted to reside in urban areas for medical and/or protection and humanitarian reasons.

The Horn of Africa is highly vulnerable to human made and natural disasters for many decades. Most of the area landscape is characterized by low land and arid in which the annual rainfall volume is very little.

Most of the populations in the lowland parts are pastoralists. The number of cattle in the population is very high, and feeding them requires moving from place to place in search of water and grazing land. In times of extreme climate conditions, shortages of resources let the cattle to meet their death in the wilderness.

The pastoral communities, to escape disaster due to extreme weather conditions, migrate to the neighboring countries, mainly to stay in camps as refugees. Such practices continued for many decades. The pastoral communities who are rich in cattle population are engaged in traditional ways of cattle rearing, unable to modernize it.

In fact, modernization needs the availability of infrastructure such as roads, schools, health centers, veterinary services and huge budget. As the location of the pastoral community is in the remotest areas of the countries, access to the market to supply their products is very hard.

Therefore, the economic value of their cattle resource is insignificant. In such a way, designing climate resilient economy strategy seems farfetched. Their way of life remains business as usual from generation to generation.

Displacement due to drought and flood which is a natural phenomenon and political instability forces the community members to leave their areas and living in the neighboring countries as refuge particularly in Ethiopia.

Somalia was stateless for years since the downfall of the Ziad Barre regime in 1991, during which war and displacement were rampant. The civil war ignited in the 1990s among the warlords in Somalia left many dead, physically injured, and psychologically traumatized, and hundreds of thousands were forced to find their way to live as refugees in Ethiopia.

Later the emergence of radical fighters known as “Al Shabaab” makes the matter worse and still displacement and migration due to war and fear continued.

Even though Ethiopia itself is still hit by natural calamities induced by drought and flood, it continues to host refugees in its land, and one can observe many refugee camps in the southeast of the country with refugees living in tents. The United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees and the Disaster Risk Prevention Commission of Ethiopia played pivotal roles in hosting and supplying humanitarian aid to refugees.

The other neighboring countries whose citizens migrate to Ethiopia are South Sudan and Sudan.

Before Sudan was split into two countries in 2010, it passed through a protracted civil war for more than 40 years. To flee the war, thousands of Sudanese migrated to Ethiopia. The number of refugees is still increasing due to the rampant political instability and war. South Sudan gained its independence in 2011, and only five years after the independence, the country indulged in civil war, and to escape the war, hundreds of thousands of Southern Sudanese migrated to Ethiopia and registered as refugees.

One can observe camps located in Benishangul Gumuz region hosting refugees from South Sudan living in tents.

The outbreak of war in Khartoum between the government and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) two years ago displaced thousands from their homes, and they crossed the border to Ethiopia and were hosted as refugees.

There are also thousands of refugees resided here came from Eritrea due to lack of opportunity and escaping political repression. Most of them are living in Tigray region in camps.

The political instability that prevailed in the region can be said to be the most contributing factor for the emergence of migration and displacement. Most of the countries are still unable to build strong and functioning institutions helpful for the flourishing of the rule of law, which are key for establishing stability and building democracy.

Leaders used to come to power by unconstitutional means and imposed arbitrary rule, which pose public grievance. As a result, the region was unable to move forward and stayed in the cycle of violence, which pushes the people to migrate. The absence of rule of law created fertile ground for illegal trading and arms smuggling, which further exacerbated the movement of insurgency and conflict, which in intern pose displacement.

The external forces also exploit the political instability of the region to advance their interests. They fuel violence through supplying weapons to their proxies and ultimately force the population to stay in fear and migrate to the nearby countries.

Ethiopia not only hosts refugees from the neighboring countries but also serves as a transit to third countries. Refugees from Somalia and Eritrea used Ethiopia as a corridor to go to Libya via Sudan, and after crossing the Mediterranean Sea, they arrived in Europe. Ethiopia properly treats all refugees as their second country and facilitates all the humanitarian assistance.

Ethiopia has a very generous and very progressive refugee policy that accommodates and grants refugees the right to access services and make a livelihood, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) deputy representative.

The Deputy Representative Andrew Mbogori recently said that Ethiopia’s refugee policy is very progressive and generous.

“The government has been very generous in opening the borders, and it has very accommodative policies and laws that it has put in place, which grant refugees the right to remain, access to services as well as the right to be able to make a livelihood,” he said.

“We have seen recently that instead of putting refugees in camps where they are confined and not able to move, the government has allowed them to settle freely within the community where they will be able to live normally,” Andrew Mbogori elaborated.

Moreover, the deputy representative added that the host communities are the first to respond when (UNHCR) encounters refugee crises. Even before it starts operation, Ethiopia provides food and share homes. Speaking about the recent Sudanese refugees entering Ethiopia, he said that the numbers are growing as the conflict has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee to neighboring countries, including Ethiopia.

Sudanese refugees have been entering Ethiopia through multiple border crossing points in Amhara, Benishangul-Gumz, and Gambella regions.

“Before the current conflict in Sudan, there were about 15,000 refugees from Sudan in Ethiopia. Since the conflict began before last year we have seen close to 25,000 refugees came from Sudan,” Andrew stated.

According to UNHCR projection, there could be about 100,000 Sudanese refugees who may want to seek asylum in Ethiopia by the end of this year if the situation is not changing.

The UNHCR is working closely with the Government of Ethiopia to support the refugees. Since the conflict began Refugees and Returnees Service (RRS) established screening and registration facilities at the border of entering points, including in Amhara, Benishangul- Gumuz and Gambella regions.