Eritrean refugees resettle to United States

December 17, 2008 (MEKELLE, Ethiopia) — A first round of 81 Eritrean refugees from Shimelba refuge camp of Tigray region last week left to the United States as part of the ongoing resettlement operation.

The resettlement operation is conducted by the UN refugee agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in close cooperation with Ethiopian authorities.

The United States has agreed to accept all Eritrean refugees that are currently being sheltered at Shimelba, a refugee camp in the far north of Ethiopia close to the Eritrean border.

The camp currently hosts more than 17,900 of the 23,500 refugees from Eritrea living in Ethiopia.

This is the first time for the U.S. to accept Eritrean refugees in mass from Ethiopia.

Another 170 Eritrean refugees are also scheduled to leave for America next month.

The resettled Eritreans are said to include students, soldiers, mothers and children.

The government of Ethiopia over the past few years has resettled over 3500 Eritreans to different foreign nations including to Canada and to various European nations.

Last July about 700 Eritrean refugees from Kunama ethnic group resettled in the U.S. after years of exile in the Shimelba camp. The Kunama were displaced by the 1998-2000 border war between their native Eritrea and Ethiopia.

The refugees are members of a largely rural ethnic group of about 100,000 people who reside on the disputed Ethiopia-Eritrea border. They crossed into Ethiopia complaining of alleged persecution and harassment by the Eritrean government, according to the UNHCR.

(ST)