Eritrea beseeched on sole refugee camp
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has
appealed to Eritrea not to close the Umkulu refugee camp after hundreds of
refugees left it in recent weeks amidst reports that local authorities had
asked them to leave.
Umkulu camp, located some 10
kilometres from the Red Sea port town of Massawa, is Eritrea’s only refugee
camp. As of mid-June, it hosted more than 2,100 Somali refugees, and 1,300 of
their number have now arrived in northern Ethiopia.
“We call on the Eritrean
authorities to continue to work with us on securing protection and solutions
for refugees who remain in the country,” said Raouf Mazou, Director of UNHCR’s
Regional Bureau for Africa.
“Closing a camp which has hosted
Somali refugees for close to twenty years without offering alternatives raises
serious concerns,” UNHCR’s Mazou added.
UNHCR is coordinating with the
Ethiopian authorities to relocate the 1,300 refugees who arrived in Ethiopia
away from the border and to transfer them to Melkadida in the Southern part of
the country.
Ethiopia is host to some 257,000
Somali refugees.
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