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Please note: there have been a series of articles with different reports on the situation. See previous posts.

Residents express deep concern about planned relocation as aid groups say the move risks exposure to COVID-19.

Eritrean refugee children play in the Hitsats refugee camp in the Tigray region near the Eritrean boarder [File: Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]

Ethiopia is stepping up preparations to go ahead with a planned closure of a camp for Eritrean refugees, despite concerns among residents and calls by aid agencies to halt their relocation over coronavirus fears.

Home to some 26,000 people, including some 1,600 minors, Hitsats is one of four camps in the northern Tigray region hosting nearly 100,000 Eritrean refugees, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).

Earlier this month, Ethiopia’s Agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) announced to residents in Hitsats camp that the federal government had decided to relocate them to Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps, or offer them the possibility to live in towns.

The plan has yet to be executed amid the coronavirus pandemic, but officials say preparations continue.

“We are ready to start the relocation at any time,” Eyob Awoke, deputy director general of ARRA, told Al Jazeera, noting that the declaration of a state of emergency last week due to the pandemic had forced authorities “to timely adapt the initial plan”.

“External factors are hampering us,” Eyob added, “but we can start with small numbers”.

“Hitsats refugees are suffering a lot from shortage of water, shelter and access to electricity,” Eyob said. “Merging of these camps is mainly required to ensure efficient and effective use of available resources.”

COVID-19 risk

The timeline and measures for the closure have not been shared with the UNHCR and other partners.

Yet, there are concerns that Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps are almost full and lack the infrastructure needed to cope with new arrivals, including sub-standard access to water.

In a statement sent to Al Jazeera on Friday, the UNHCR urged the government to put on hold any relocation effort, saying it risked making refugees vulnerable to COVID-19, the highly infectious respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.

“Any large-scale movement now will expose the refugees to risk of COVID-19 outbreak in camps”, the agency said.

ARRA assured that the transfer of the refugees would be carried out in a coordinated way. As of April 19, Ethiopia had 108 confirmed coronavirus cases, including three deaths.

In a letter sent to the UN at the end of March, refugees in Hitsats camp had also expressed deep concern about the prospect of the camp’s closure.

“We are in a deep fear, psychological stress and we need protection”, read the letter, which was seen by Al Jazeera.

“We feel threatened. They told us that if we decide to stay, we will lose any kind of support,” a refugee living in Hitsats camp told Al Jazeera.

Currently, only critical humanitarian and life-saving activities are running at the camp, as well as awareness-raising activities to prevent the spread of COVID-19. At the beginning of the month, the UNHCR and the World Food Programme reported that residents in Hitsats received a food ration for April.

INSIDE STORY: Why are Eritreans fleeing their country? (23:05)

Eritrean refugees are also allowed to live outside camps, but many do not want to leave Hitsats.

Other refugees eventually settle in the capital, Addis Ababa, but struggle to make a living and are highly dependent on external aid.

So far this year, ARRA has issued 5,000 official permits for refugees to live outside camps, according to the UNHCR, mainly for Eritreans in Hitsats and other camps in Tigray.

“In light of the current rush to close the camp, one is compelled to ponder whether the decision is more political as opposed to an operational one?” said Mehari Taddele Maru, a professor at the European University Institute.

The UNHCR, in its statement to Al Jazeera, said it could not speculate about the government’s rationale for closing the camp.

In a letter dated April 9, 2020 that was seen by Al Jazeera, ARRA communicated to all humanitarian partners that new arrivals from neighbouring Eritrea would no longer be offered “prima facie” refugee status, revisiting a longstanding policy of automatically granting all Eritrean asylum seekers the right to stay.

“We will have to narrow down the criteria for accepting Eritrean asylum claims, they have to demonstrate a personal fear of persecution based on political or religious action or association or military position”, Eyob said.

“Today, the situation is not like before, many people are coming to Ethiopia and going back to Eritrea.”

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sparked an historic rapprochement with Eritrea soon after taking office in April 2018, restoring ties that had been frozen since a 1998-2000 border war. His efforts in ending two decades of hostilities were cited by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as one of the main reasons for awarding Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

The rapprochement, however, has yet to lead to the full normalisation of the two neighbours’ ties, while activists’ hopes that the peace process would lead to major policy reforms within Eritrea have been largely dashed. The long-criticised universal conscription is still in place while crippling restrictions on press freedom and freedom of expression continue.

“We cannot return to Eritrea”, a refugee in Hitsats told Al Jazeera.

“For Eritreans, fleeing is one of the only real options to escape their government’s repression”, Laetitia Bader, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, said.

“Any policy shifts are definitely a risk to Eritreans’ right to asylum,” Bader said.

Source: Swiss Peace

Tigray route to Hitsats Camp (2020). Picture: Andrea Grossenbacher

Since the coming to power of Abiy Ahmed as Ethiopia’s Prime Minister in April 2018, the country has undergone significant political and economic changes. The promises of a unified and democratic Ethiopia have created high hopes for more peaceful times. At the same time, uncertainty arises as people ask themselves how peace might look like, at what cost it will come and for whom.

The Peace Deal between Eritrea and Ethiopia

One of the achievements of PM Abiy Ahmed’s on-going political reform was to put an end to two decades of ‘frozen war’ between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The signing of the peace agreement in July 2018 won PM Abiy Ahmed international and national recognition and the “2019 Peace Nobel Prize”. In September 2018, following the peace deal, the borders between Ethiopia and Eritrea were opened. Media outlets all around the world documented the joyous moment as families reunified after decades of separation. For many, the images of this historic moment highlighted the personal costs of conflict and the immediate possibilities of peace.

The peace deal with Eritrea had, and continues to have, an impact on the lives of Eritreans and Ethiopians living in the border area in northern Ethiopia. However, the immediate possibilities of peace seem to have faded as the deal has failed to translate into tangible and sustainable improvements for the people. On the contrary, for some, it has created more insecurity and new vulnerabilities. Despite Ethiopia’s history of hosting and maintaining good relationships with Eritrean refugees, a closer look at the current situation of Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia suggests a gradual deterioration of their protection and safety following the peace agreement. In order to understand the implications of this situation for overall peace, we must look more closely into how the peace agreement directly or indirectly affects Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia.

Refugee Policy in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has a long history of hosting refugees. According to UNHCR, Ethiopia is currently sheltering 748,448 registered refugees and asylum seekers (as of 29 February 2020). The regions Tigray and Afar host 139,281 registered Eritrean refugees (as of 31 December 2019). The country acceded to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and has ratified the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. Moreover, Ethiopia has maintained an open door policy for people seeking asylum in the country, allowing humanitarian access and protection to refugees. In recent years, the country has seen its refugee policy move from basic service provision to a more progressive and rights-based model. The development towards more progressive refugee policies ended in the adoption of a landmark framework on refugees in 2017: the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (This paves the way for the implementation of the nine pledges Ethiopia made at the Leaders’ Summit on Refugees in September 2016 in New York and provides a solid political basis and direction for enhanced protection and provision of rights. Ethiopia has also been a key driver of the regional CRRF process. In January 2019, the national refugee proclamation was revised which is expected to enable refugees to become more independent, better protected and have greater access to local solutions, making it one of the most progressive in Africa.

Counter to this trend, policies that were in place to protect Eritrean refugees are currently undergoing changes, most likely because of the rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. There have been shifts in practice to no longer recognize Eritreans as prima facie refugees. Consequently, Eritreans have to undergo individual refugee status determination. Further, there seems to be a faster process in place for Eritrean refugees to make use of the ‘Out of Camp Policy’, which allows Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia to live outside of camps, if finally, this month several Ethiopian newspapers announced the shutdown of the Hitsats camp, one of the four Eritrean refugee camps in northern Ethiopia, leaving about 18’000 Eritrean refugees with an uncertain future. These recent developments have created insecurity and challenges for refugee protection. Yet, given the peace declaration between Eritrea and Ethiopia it does not come as a surprise that some measures, such as the refugee status determination, are being introduced. However, a cause for concern is that measures might be put in place to actively reduce the attractiveness of the Tigray/Afar region for Eritrean refugees, impacting on their ability to get protection.

Peace & Displacement

The peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia had a direct impact on movement as it resulted in the border opening in 2018, which lasted about two months. During this time, many people benefitted from the freedom of movement across the border, for personal and business purposes. However, not everyone was happy with this situation.

First, the uncontrolled movement across borders increased insecurity among Eritrean refugees in the camps in northern Ethiopia, as the end of the conflict with Ethiopia does not guarantee political change in Eritrea. Therefore, people in the camps who fled because of the Eritrean government feared that an opening of the border would allow Eritrean officials to enter the camps and that they would be forced to return to Eritrea. This insecurity has persisted until now and could have a negative impact on the relationships between and among refugees, national and international refugee protection agencies and the national government of Ethiopia, as it increases mistrust, a sense of helplessness and fear

Second, the opening of the border actually led to a subsequent complete closure of the border from the Eritrean side. Legal border crossing is no longer possible. In addition, today there are fewer entry points for Eritrean refugees to register themselves in Ethiopia than before. This, together with the change in prima facie refugee status recognition, has made it more difficult for Eritreans to seek refuge in Ethiopia.

Finally, the peace agreement has led to a change in approach towards Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia, which is counter to the overall trend towards more progressive refugee policies in the country. This has created a lot of frustration among refugees, particularly young Eritreans who are well informed and have high expectations regarding the pledges that Ethiopia made to allocate more rights to refugees. Thus, unmet expectations of refugees regarding implementation of the pledges combined with more restrictive policies for Eritrean refugees that are perceived to be aimed at preventing Eritreans from entering Ethiopia and/or from staying in the border area could potentially increase frustration, mistrust and drive tensions between refugees, refugee agencies and the national government. Moreover, Tigrayans in northern Ethiopia have historically welcomed Eritrean refugees warmly, mainly due to the fact that they share the same ethnicity, culture and language. In many cases, host and refugee communities have developed peaceful and mutually benefitting relationships. Therefore – and keeping in mind the already tense relationship between the region’s main political party, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), and both the Eritrean and Ethiopian government – it is worth thinking about the potential impact tensions between Eritrean refugees and the Ethiopian government would have on the relationship between the Tigrayans and the national government.

The negative consequences of the peace deal for some Eritrean refugees in northern Ethiopia, and the potential impact they could have in terms of exacerbating pre-existing tensions or creating new conflict dynamics, shows the importance and relevance of a systematic integration of migration and displacement issues in peace processes and policies. This is a strong argument for an increased engagement on the peace and migration nexus as a means to prevent conflicts and sustain peace.

swisspeaceAndrea Grossenbacher This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.Program Officer