Wednesday, July 18, 2007
"The UN refugee agency has reopened the Teferi Ber camp in eastern Ethiopia and begun relocating some 4,000 Somali refugees there from an overcrowded makeshift settlement close to the border with Somalia," a statement said.
The UNCHR said more than 1,000 people had already been transferred, and more transport convoys would be organised every three days from the temporary settlement at Kebribeyah, 120 kilometres (72 miles) to the south.
"An estimated 7,000 additional Somalis are waiting to be screened for refugee status at other sites in eastern Ethiopia," the agency said.
The UN has been dealing with a steady influx of refugees into eastern Ethiopia from Somalia, now estimated at 23,000 asylum seekers.
Tens of thousands of Somalis have fled the violence in their country, still plagued by a simmering civil conflict after Ethiopian-backed government forces ousted an Islamist militia.
More than a dozen attempts to restore stability in Somalia have failed since the fall of former dictator Siad Barre in 1991, allowing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises to develop.
The reopening of Teferi Ber reverses a trend which has seen the closure of eight out of nine refugee camps in eastern Ethiopia over the past few years and the gradual winding down of UNHCR's operations for Somali refugees in the area.
At the height of the Somali emergency in 1988, UNHCR was caring for more than 628,000 Somali refugees in Ethiopia, a figure which dropped to 10,365 by the end of organized repatriation to Somalia in 2005.
The overcrowded camp at Kebribeyah currently holds 16,572 Somali refugees most of whom arrived in Ethiopia in 1991.
Source: AFP, July 18, 2007