Eritrean News Agency (ERINA)

(Tel: ++291-1-117627, Fax: 127385)
ERINA Update

Wednesday, October 21, 1998

1. The Ethiopian government has carried out a new wave of expulsions of Eritreans. Two thousand, five hundred Eritreans, mostly women and children, are expected along five separate border points (Humera, Rama, Zalambesa, Tserona and Bore) today. The Ethiopian government has not explained the reasoning behind the dispersal of families along the disparate border posts and has not arranged for the ICRC to monitor the deportees to Eritrea. The Ethiopian government continues to detain some 1,316 youth in a concentration camp at Blatien. More than eighty of these youth being held in the remote camp under the claim by Ethiopia that they are "potential soldiers" are university students, many who were in Ethiopia on the basis of a student exchange program. To date, the Ethiopian government has expelled some 30,000 Eritreans.

2. The Indian government has made arrangements with the Eritrean Embassy in China to coordinate the issuance of Eritrean passports and permits for Eritrean students who were stripped of their Ethiopian citizenship while studying in India. Eritrea's First Secretary to the embassy in China, Mr. Abraham Dawit, spoke to Eritrean students at a seminar in the Indian town of Puna and informed them that the Indian government would allow them to continue with their studies. The Ethiopian ambassador to India had earlier called on the Indian government to deport Eritrean students whose Ethiopian citizenship had been stripped. Indian authorities refused to entertain Ethiopia's attempts to have the students expelled saying that the Ethiopian embassy might be able to cancel passports but could not have the students expelled.

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: veronica@embassyeritrea.org

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