Agreement Allows for Repatriation of Eritreans Who Fled Fighting

About 90,000 Eritreans who took refuge in Sudan during their country’s war with neighboring Ethiopia will begin returning home under an agreement reached Friday, officials said.

The agreement among the United Nations, Sudan and Eritrea would permit the return of refugees living in three camps for more than two months after being forced to flee their shops and farms by fighting in the 2-year war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Peter Kessler, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees’ spokesman in Eritrea, said the first organized transport to return the refugees would be provided next week.

“It means everybody can come back with their personal effects as soon as they wish,” Kessler said. “It’s a sign people are betting on stability, the cease-fire agreement and the quick deployment of peacekeepers.”

On June 18, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a cessation-of-hostilities agreement and agreed to the deployment of a U.N. force to secure a 15-mile buffer zone inside Eritrea while independent experts conduct the demarcation of their disputed 620-mile border.

A U.N. reconnaissance mission laying the groundwork for the force is in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Last week, the team, headed by Australian Maj. Gen. Timothy Ford, spent three days in Eritrea.

The two nations have been locked in a border conflict since May 6, 1998, with sporadic fighting costing the impoverished nations tens of thousands of lives and millions of dollars in armaments.

Meanwhile, Africa’s longest-suffering refugees, 160,000 Eritreans who fled to Sudan at the start of their country’s war of independence 30 years ago, will have to wait a bit longer before they can return.

A repatriation program was supposed to have begun in May for these refugees, but it was put on hold by the latest conflict.

It will now be several months before they are repatriated, Kessler said.

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993.

Meanwhile, a U.N. official said Friday that Eritrea probably will need food aid for 12 to 18 months.

Carolyn McAskie, acting United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, has just completed a 10-day visit of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Kenya, where she assessed U.N. operations to avert hunger in the drought-hit region.