U.N. seeks Ethiopian airmen who defected to Djibouti

GENEVA, July 15 (Reuters) – The United Nations on Friday called on Djibouti to clarify the fate of two Ethiopian military helicopter pilots and their flight engineer who reportedly defected and may have been deported home.

The trio is believed to have flown their craft around June 10 to the tiny neighbouring Red Sea state, but U.N. officials have failed to gain access to the airmen to determine whether they deserve refugee status.

“We still have not seen them and we are growing increasingly concerned that the pilots might have been returned to Ethiopia against their will,” Ron Redmond, spokesman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters.

An Ethiopian opposition group has reported on its Web site www.ethiomedia.com that the airmen fled after receiving orders to use their helicopter gunship to crush student demonstrators in Addis Ababa. Several dozen people were killed in June 8 protests in the capital against alleged poll rigging.

The UNHCR declined comment on the reason for their flight, which coincided roughly with the defection of eight Ethiopian air force personnel while training in Belarus. They are being processed under the ex-Soviet state’s asylum laws, Redmond said.

Kamel Morjane, U.N. Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf this week expressing concern amid contradictory information on the airmen’s fate, he added.

Some Djibouti officials had said the airmen were returned to Ethiopia, while others said at least two remained in Djibouti, according to the Geneva-based agency.

It was essential for the UNHCR and Djibouti authorities to find an “appropriate solution in conformity with international refugee law”, according to the text of Morjane’s letter.

Djibouti has signed the 1951 U.N. Convention on refugees which prohibits expulsion or return of a refugee to a country where his or her life or freedom may be threatened.