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ETHIOPIA-ERITREA-MIGRATION-DIPLOMACY
Eritrean exodus intensifies after peace with Ethiopia
ZALAMBESSA, Ethiopia, Oct 12, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – For three years, fear
and poverty kept Nebyat Zerea from leaving Eritrea to find her husband, until
the day last month when the border with Ethiopia reopened and everything
changed.
The whirlwind peace process between the arch-enemies that began earlier
this year has seen flights restarted and embassies re-established, but
perhaps no development has affected Eritreans like the border’s September
opening.
Since then, the rate at which Eritreans have sought refuge in Ethiopia
has increased dramatically, according to the United Nations, as the soldiers
who once arrested refugees like Nebyat now simply record their names as they
cross over.
“I had to take this chance to leave the country now,” she told AFP a few
days after arriving in the Ethiopian border town of Zalambessa with her three
daughters, all under six.
Refugee arrivals have jumped to about 390 per day from around 53, and
Ethiopian authorities have registered more than 6,700 new arrivals since the
border’s opening, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
Migration out of Eritrea is nothing new: hundreds of thousands of people
have fled the notoriously repressive and economically moribund country in
recent years, with many making perilous journeys through deserts and across
the Mediterranean to Europe.
Eritrea’s normalisation of relations with Ethiopia raised hopes that
President Isaias Afwerki would roll back policies driving the migration.
Chief among these is his country’s indefinite national service programme,
which forces citizens into specific jobs at low pay and bans them from
travelling abroad.
But no changes have yet been announced, and the Eritrean exodus has only
intensified with peace.
“It was not my interest to go to another country, but in the end I was
forced to,” said Daniel Hadgu, a recent Eritrean arrival in Zalambessa who
aims to reach his sister in the Netherlands.
– Voting with their feet –
Once a province of Ethiopia, Eritrea voted to separate in 1993 after a
bloody, decades-long independence struggle.
It was back at war with its southern neighbour in 1998 when a dispute
over their shared border turned violent.
While the fighting stopped in 2000, relations remained stalemated and the
border stayed sealed after Ethiopia refused to abide by a UN-backed boundary
demarcation.
In 2001, Isaias, Eritrea’s only leader since secession, shut down the
independent press, jailed dissidents without trial and made indefinite the
national service scheme, which the UN has likened to “slavery”.
The policies, which Isaias has said were necessary in case the Ethiopians
attacked, stymied businesses and fuelled emigration.
“There’s nothing to do, no business,” 18-year-old Jamila Abdela said as
she stood among dozens of recent Eritrean arrivals in Zalambessa. “I am just
looking for a better life.”
– ‘Where are they going?’ –
The cold war seemed intractable until the April inauguration of Abiy
Ahmed as Ethiopia’s prime minister, who soon announced his government would
hand back the disputed territory.
Abiy and Isaias signed a peace pact in July, and in September, visited
Zalambessa together to re-open the land border.
In a foreshadowing of things to come, Eritrean spectators stormed across
the barren no man’s land separating the two countries after the leaders had
concluded their brief ceremony.
In the past, Eritrean troops would turn back migrants like Nebyat, who
had made one unsuccessful attempt to cross the border during its closure.
The alternative — paying a smuggler — was beyond her means.
Today, Eritrean soldiers in tents at the border merely log the names of
travellers, and all Nebyat said she had to do was pay for a bus to Ethiopia,
the first stop on a long journey to Germany, where her husband wound up after
emigrating three years ago.
“We can’t survive in Eritrea. We don’t have any income,” she said.
On a recent afternoon, fresh arrivals from Eritrea congregated on a
Zalambessa back street, clutching backpacks and registering with local
officials.
“Daily, people are passing by here,” said Taeme Lemlem, a bar owner in
the town who’s watched the refugees with puzzlement. “I’m wondering, where
are they going?”
BSS/AFP/RY/20:12 hrs