In an April 2019 article, Human Rights Watch (HRW) states that it had been told by Gedeo IDPs and humanitarian actors that IDPs have been pressured to return to unsafe areas, while at the same time humanitarian assistance was shifted from IDP areas to return areas (HRW, 9 April 2019). In a February 2019 article, TNH reports on similar accusations against the government by aid workers, who say “food assistance [in several areas near the border of Oromia and SNNP]
has been blocked in order to encourage inhabitants to return to Oromia” (TNH, 28 February 2019).
149 Almost half of all refugees in Ethiopia originate from South Sudan (45%), followed by Somali (26%), Eritreans (21%) and people from Sudan (7%) (UNHCR, 30 September 2019). Refugees in Ethiopia are for the greater part located in the border regions to their countries of origin, living close to or in one of 26 camps (The World Bank, 22 June 2019, p. 8). UNHCR details:
“The majority of refugees in Ethiopia are located in Tigray Regional State and the four Emerging Regions of Ethiopia: Afar Regional State; Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State;
Gambella Regional State; and the Somali Regional State. The Emerging Regions are the least developed regions in the country, characterized by harsh weather conditions, poor infrastructure, low administrative capacity, a high level of poverty and poor development indicators.” (UNHCR, 1 February 2019, p. 6)
Source: UNHCR, 30 September 2019 Refugees from South Sudan
The largest group of refugees in Ethiopia originates from South Sudan. Those refugees mainly live in West Ethiopia in seven camps in the state of Gambella (UNOCHA, 20 February 2019).
According to UNHCR, “the natural environment in the area is fragile and access to alternative energy for cooking and light is minimal, necessitating refugees to collect firewood” (UNHCR, 1 February 2019, p. 10).
21 percent of new arrivals in the Gambella region are unaccompanied minors or children separated from their parents. Many of them were traumatised by the events leading to their displacement or during their flight (UNHCR, 1 February 2019). About 5,000 refugees are reported to have returned from Gambella to South Sudan, due to violent incidents in the refugee camps:
“Reasons for return included fear of retaliatory action following the recent sub-clan conflicts that started in Kule camp and spread to Tierkidi and Nguenyyiel camps in January 2019 and family reunification in South Sudan, with plans to return to the camps in Ethiopia expected. This return comes against a backdrop of 2,015 new arrivals from South Sudan between 1 and 25 January. UNICEF and partners continue to support lifesaving interventions for new arrivals in Gambella.” (UNICEF, 11 March 2019, p. 2)
Based on several sources, the Institue for Security Studies (ISS) reports in an October 2018 policy brief that the presence of large numbers of refugees of ethnic Nuer background poses a great challenge to regional inter-ethnic relations:
“[…] the presence of refugees in this region is sensitive, due to multiple layers of tension involving Anuak and Nuer ethnic groups, highlanders and lowlanders, and refugees and host communities. Access to land, environmental degradation, including deforestation and destruction of wildlife, demographic pressure and historical tensions between the ethnic groups, particularly the Anuak and the Nuer, are some of the challenges. Among the Anuak population, there is a ‘siege mentality’, a feeling of being undermined as a minority ethnic group in relation to the Nuer, due to the numerical imbalance between both groups, which many attribute to the inflow of ethnic-Nuer refugees. The refugee population by 2017 had become larger than the local population of Gambella. Acknowledging this challenge, the government and UNHCR in May 2017 began to relocate newly arrived South Sudanese refugees to the neighbouring Benishangul-Gumuz region.” (ISS, October 2018, p. 6)
The Australian media organisation SBS in an April 2019 article reports on insufficient conditions of medical care in the Jewi refugee camp in Gambella:
“The children at the [nutrition] centre [in the Jewi refugee camp] are severely malnourished and if their conditions don’t improve soon, they could die. […] The UNHCR's nutrition program has helped bring the rate of malnutrition at the camps down from 33 per cent in 2014, to roughly 13 per cent today. But despite this success, Millicent Lusigi Kavsa - a nutrition officer with UNHCR - says qualified medical staff remain in short supply.
[…] At the intensive care centre next door in Jewi, the situation is even more dire. Cramped rooms and limited staff mean the International Medical Corps can only accommodate half a dozen children in intensive care at a time.” (SBS, 7 April 2019)
The article continues citing the medical director of Gambella’s only hospital, who says that due to the influx of South Sudanese refugees to the region, the hospital is not sufficiently equipped
151 with beds and the demand for doctors is overwhelming. The above mentioned UNHCR nutrition officer Ms Kavsa in the article reports that refugees in camps suffer from a lack of water and don’t have access to adequate latrines (SBS, 7 April 2019). In a 5 September 2019 press release, the aid organisation Action Against Hunger announced that two of its employees had been killed in an ambush. The organisation subsequently restricted its full operations in Gambella, maintaining only provision of lifesaving assistance (Action Against Hunger, 5 September 2019).
Refugees from Somalia
Refugees of Somali origin are mainly hosted by Ethiopian Somali state:
“The Somali refugee population is currently supported in two locations in the Somali Region Jijiga (three camps) and Melkadida (five camps). Some of those residing in Jijiga have been based in Ethiopia for over twenty years, while the majority of individuals in Melkadida have been in the Region for eight years. […] In Melkadida, new arrivals over the previous year showed serious malnutrition rates with the prevalence of Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) at 25 percent and 37 percent among newly arrived children and pregnant and lactating women, respectively. However, reduced general food ration below the minimum standard of 2,100 kcal per day provided in the receiving camps threatens to worsen this situation further.” (UNHCR, 1 February 2019, p. 11)
UNHCR states that providing services in the Somali region is more challenging due to the arid environment, poor or no roads and the small and scattered nomadic populations (UNHCR, 1 February 2019, p. 6).
Refugees from Eritrea
In an October 2019 article, TNH reports that many Eritrean refugees live in one of four camps situated at the Eritrean border in Tigray state, but the majority continues from there to cities, some of them hoping for a chance to go to Europe (TNH, 16 October 2019). Until the adoption of provisions in its refugee law in January 2019 (UNHCR, 18 January 2019), Eritreans were the only nationality eligible for Out of Camp scheme and therefore the only nationality allowed to live outside camps (The World Bank, 22 June 2019, p. 8). Therefore, urban refugee population used to be predominantly Eritrean (TNH, 15 November 2018).
With regard to the high number of unaccompanied children, UNHCR states:
“Of particular concern is the high number of unaccompanied and separated children arriving in Ethiopia fleeing impending military conscription, with a disproportionate impact on teenage boys. Children accounted for 44 percent of the total refugee population residing in the Tigray camps, of whom 27 percent arrive unaccompanied or separated from their families. A key challenge in providing protection, assistance and solutions to Eritrean refugees concerns the high number of individuals leaving the camps to pursue onward movements.” (UNHCR, 1 February 2019, p. 8)
Refugees from Sudan
Refugees of Sudanese nationality are for the largest part supported in four refugee camps in Benishangul-Gumuz (UNHCR, 1 February 2019, p. 9). UNHCR further states:
“Upon reception and relocation, as with all population groups, Sudanese refugees are individually registered and provided with core relief items; including sleeping mats, blankets, jerry canes, water buckets and kitchen sets, together with the regular distribution of hygiene and sanitary items. Feedback received from a return intention survey highlighted that a large majority of the Sudanese refugee population expressed a desire to return home in the near future, while citing risks related to the lack of access to food, employment and education opportunity; particularly for girls.” (UNHCR, 1 February 2019, p. 9)
Situation of refugee children
According to the UNHCR Ethiopia Country Refugee Response Plan, at the beginning of 2019 more than half (57 %) of all refugees in Ethiopia were children,
“[…] while 54,715 refugee children were unaccompanied or separated (UASC). In northern Ethiopia close to 27 percent of all children are separated from their primary caregivers.
The onward movement of UASCs originating from Eritrea to urban centres and third countries is substantial with up to 60 percent estimated to leave camps within a given year, exposing children to risks of smuggling, trafficking and SGBV [sexual and gender-based violence].” (UNHCR, 1 February 2019, p. 20)
In the Human Rights Council’s March 2019 Compilation on Ethiopia, the Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed its concern about “the lack of security and protection of refugee, asylum-seeking and internally displaced children from violence, exploitation and abuse within and outside refugee camps”. The committee was also “seriously concerned about reports of disappearances of refugee and asylum-seeking children from refugee camps, and about the living conditions in those camps” and raised concerns that “children of refugees were not registered at birth” (HRC, 1 March 2019, p. 9).
In an April 2019 article SBS reports on the risks the great numbers of unaccompanied children face in Ethiopia’s refugee camps. When going to the forest to collect fire wood, necessary to keep warm and cook food, girls are in constant fear of being raped:
"’Going to the forest poses a lot of problems,’ she [a 16 year old unaccompanied refugee girl from South Sudan] tells SBS News in her native Nuer language. ‘You may find strangers in the forest, or wild animals, who run up to you. Some of us will come home wounded.
Yes, some of us are raped.’" (SBS, 2 April 2019)
In June 2019 The World Bank published a study on the education of refugee children in Ethiopia, which was conducted in three areas, namely Gambella region, Somali region and Addis Ababa.
Based on data from the Ministry of Education the report states that “refugee children are less than half as likely to complete primary school than their Ethiopian peers” (The World Bank,
153 22 June 2019, p. 14). The study investigated the causes why refugee students were missing school, with the most common reasons being undertaking chores or helping parents around the home, families struggling to afford school supplies and children’s wage earning activities (The World Bank, 22 June 2019, p. 54-55). Asked about reasons for children failing to enrol in school or their dropping out, the most common answers were that the family could not afford it, children were earning wages and children were unaccompanied (The World Bank, 22 June 2019, p. 56).