Press Release
Fresh Expulsions on Christmas

The TPLF regime rounded up around 1,500 ethnic Eritreans in Addis Abeba last Friday and bussed them for deportation in the early hours of Saturday, Christmas morning.

The TPLF has, again, willfully ignored established procedures and failed to inform the ICRC, which would have communicated the date and place of arrival of the deportees to the Eritrean government. As a result, the dumping point of the deportees along the 1,000 km war zone remains unknown at press time. There were also unconfirmed reports that another group of deportees has left Addis Abeba yesterday afternoon.
The latest round of deportations is not surprising--even if ill timed--as the TPLF regime is bent on the expulsion of all Eritreans in Ethiopia to implement its hideous policy of ethnic cleansing. Partial blame must however rest on the governments and international organizations who have taken deterrent and punitive measures against ethnic cleansing elsewhere but have chosen to be silent--under tenuous arguments of "quiet diplomacy"--thereby condoning by their inaction the TPLF's gross violations of basic human rights.

More than 66.000 ethnic Eritreans--i.e., about 55% of the total population of Eritreans in Ethiopia--have been expelled to date in a very inhumane manner and with the confiscation of their property.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Asmara, 27 December 1999