Future unsure for Ethiopia’s vulnerable refugees
UMM RAKOUBA, Sudan — The baby was born on the run from war. Her first bath was in a puddle. Now she cries all night in a country that is not her own.
Wrapped in borrowed clothing, the child is one of the newest and most fragile refugees among more than 40,000 who have fled the Ethiopian government’s offensive in the defiant Tigray region.
They have hurried into Sudan, often under gunfire, sometimes so quickly they had to leave family behind. There is not enough to feed them in the remote area, and very little shelter. Some drink from the river that separates the countries, and more cross it every day.
“We walked in the desert. We slept in the desert,” said one refugee, Blaines Alfao Eileen, who is eight months pregnant and has befriended Lemlem Haylo Rada, the mother of the newborn. One woman is ethnic Tigrayan, the other ethnic Amhara. The conflict could have turned them against each other, but motherhood intervened.
That, and tragedy. “I do not know where my husband is and whether he’s alive,” Eileen said.
Her journey took four days. “I slept on this scarf that I am holding,” she said, “and I would wake up and do it again.”
Almost half the refugees are children under 18. Around 700 women are currently pregnant, the United Nations says. At least nine have given birth in Sudan.
It has been three weeks since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent federal troops into Tigray after accusing the region’s forces of attacking a military base. Abiy’s government and the regional one each view the
other as illegitimate, and the Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister on Sunday warned that a final assault to take Tigray’s capital is imminent.
The U.N. Security Council met for the first time Tuesday on the conflict and backed a new diplomatic effort. Humanitarian organizations warned that food in the region is running out.
Ahmed’s 72-hour ultimatum for the region’s leaders to surrender ends today. His military has warned civilians of “no mercy” if they don’t move away in time — which some rights groups and diplomats say could violate international law.
“The highly aggressive rhetoric on both sides regarding the fight for Mekele is dangerously provocative and risks placing already vulnerable and frightened civilians in grave danger,” United Nations human-rights chief Michelle Bachelet said. The allegation that Tigray leaders were hiding among civilians “does not then give the Ethiopian state carte blanche to respond with the use of artillery in densely populated areas.”
Just ahead of the assault on Mekele, the U.N. Security Council met privately Tuesday to discuss the situation in Ethiopia for the first time. Members expressed support for the new African Unionled envoy effort, one council diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the conversation.
Over the weekend, the current African Union chairman, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, backed three high-level envoys, an initiative the U.N. chief quickly praised for “efforts to peacefully resolve the conflict.”
But in an unusually public disagreement, Ethiopia said the envoys would meet with Abiy and not the Tigray leaders.
“All possible scenarios will be on the table to talk, except bringing the gang to the table as a legitimate entity,” senior Ethiopian official Redwan Hussein told reporters. Abiy’s government insists the leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front are criminals on the run.
Meanwhile, civilians are caught in the middle of what some experts describe as a conflict akin to an inter-state war, so heavily armed is each side.
Many people barely know why they had to flee. Now, people of all classes, from bankers to subsistence farmers, spend up to two weeks in so-called transit centers, waiting in makeshift shelters in arid, almost treeless surroundings just over the border in Sudan; it used to be just two or three days.
Some refugees have little to protect them from the heat and sun and curl under possessions as meager as umbrellas. Men have begun weaving dried grass into temporary homes.
Covid-19 could be passing through the crowds, but the people’s focus is elsewhere. More wear crosses around their necks than face masks.
The local Sudanese villagers have been praised for their generosity, but they have little to give.
More permanent camps for the refugees are a drive of several hours away, and there is sometimes not even enough fuel to transport them there. The threat of hostilities remains while they wait so close to the border.
Almost half the refugees are children under 18. Around 700 women are currently pregnant, the United Nations says.