Eritrea Online / Dehai Homepage
1. The Ethiopian government has begun dumping Eritreans on the borderlands Ethiopia shares with Kenya and Djibouti. The Ethiopian government dumped 88 Eritreans in an isolated area between the Ethiopian-Kenyan borders over the weekend according to reports from the Kenyan government to the Eritrean Embassy in Kenya. The deportees were sent into the uninhabited Kenyan borders after they were detained for up to three months and deprived of all their possessions.
The Ethiopian government dropped another 32 Eritrean children and women in the hostile Djibouti-Ethiopian borders. These Eritreans had been detained in Diredawa for fifteen days. The Djibouti government received the victims and informed the Eritrean Embassy in Djibouti. Sources reveal that the Ethiopian government has initiated an extensive wave of detentions of Eritreans in Adi Grat and its surroundings. 2. The plight of Eritreans who have been detained and deported from Ethiopia received special attention at the annual conference of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. Eritrean ambassador to the European Commission (EC), Mr. Andebirhan Woldeghiorgis, described to conference members the serious violations of rights committed by Ethiopians against Eritreans in that country. Woldeghiorgis stated that over 17,000 Eritreans have been deported while another 2,000 continue to be detained based solely on their Eritrean origin. He also called upon the meeting to exert pressure upon Ethiopia to honor the rights of these Eritreans. 3. The Eritrean National Team returned to Asmara yesterday from their trip to Egypt where they were to have played a qualifying match with Ethiopia for the 22nd African Cup tournament to be held in Zimbabwe. The Ethiopian National Team, however, refused to play with Eritrea. The Confederation of African Football has confirmed that Eritrea qualifies following Ethiopia's forfeit of the match. Eritrea now faces group opponents Cameroon, Ghana, and Botswana or Mozambique.
Veronica Rentmeesters, Information Officer
Embassy of Eritrea to the US
1708 New Hampshire Ave NW, Washington DC 20009, USA TEL: 202 588 7587 FAX: 202 319 1304
E-M: veronicX@embassyeritrea.org