The reason why Ethiopia is closing Shimbela and Hitsats refugee camps for Eritreans in Tigray (The Independent)
Posted: 10 Feb 2021, 18:25
They are trying to cover evidence of war crimes, murders and looting from UNHCR and International community
Eritrean refugees become target as old enemies join forces in chaos of Tigray conflict
Witnesses have begun to give accounts of the toll on civilians and the pervasive presence of Eritrean soldiers in the northern Ethiopian region, write Declan Walsh and Simon Marks
Saturday 02 January 2021 13:28
As fighting raged across the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia in November, a group of soldiers arrived one day at Hitsats, a small hamlet ringed by scrubby hills that was home to a sprawling refugee camp of about 25,000 people.
The refugees had come from Eritrea, whose border lies 30 miles away, part of a vast exodus in recent years led by desperate youth fleeing the tyrannical rule of their leader, one of Africa’s harshest autocrats. In Ethiopia, Eritrea’s longtime adversary, they believed they were safe.
But the soldiers who burst into the camp on 19 November were also Eritrean, witnesses say. Mayhem quickly followed – days of plunder, punishment and bloodshed that ended with dozens of refugees being singled out and forced back across the border into Eritrea.
he chaos deepened in the days that followed, when Eritrean soldiers looted aid supplies, stole vehicles and set fire to fields filled with crops and a nearby forested area used by refugees to collect wood, aid workers said. The camp’s main water tank was riddled with gunfire and emptied.
Their accounts are supported by satellite images, obtained and analysed by The New York Times, that show large patches of newly scorched earth in and around the Hitsats camp after the Eritrean forces swept through.
Continue reading at the Independent website
Eritrean refugees become target as old enemies join forces in chaos of Tigray conflict
Witnesses have begun to give accounts of the toll on civilians and the pervasive presence of Eritrean soldiers in the northern Ethiopian region, write Declan Walsh and Simon Marks
Saturday 02 January 2021 13:28
As fighting raged across the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia in November, a group of soldiers arrived one day at Hitsats, a small hamlet ringed by scrubby hills that was home to a sprawling refugee camp of about 25,000 people.
The refugees had come from Eritrea, whose border lies 30 miles away, part of a vast exodus in recent years led by desperate youth fleeing the tyrannical rule of their leader, one of Africa’s harshest autocrats. In Ethiopia, Eritrea’s longtime adversary, they believed they were safe.
But the soldiers who burst into the camp on 19 November were also Eritrean, witnesses say. Mayhem quickly followed – days of plunder, punishment and bloodshed that ended with dozens of refugees being singled out and forced back across the border into Eritrea.
he chaos deepened in the days that followed, when Eritrean soldiers looted aid supplies, stole vehicles and set fire to fields filled with crops and a nearby forested area used by refugees to collect wood, aid workers said. The camp’s main water tank was riddled with gunfire and emptied.
Their accounts are supported by satellite images, obtained and analysed by The New York Times, that show large patches of newly scorched earth in and around the Hitsats camp after the Eritrean forces swept through.
Continue reading at the Independent website