In May 2019 Africanews relayed Refugees International’s warning that the Ethiopian government’s push to return internally displaced people, especially in the Gedeo–West Guji belt, was deepening an already severe crisis.
RI advocate Mark Yarnell said officials had restricted aid in camps, demolished sites, and pressed people to go home while villages remained burned and insecure. Many who returned ended up in crowded secondary sites, and some fled again when violence resumed.
Ethiopia had recorded one of the world’s highest new IDP counts in 2018. Abiy Ahmed’s government floated a strategic plan that returns should be voluntary and safe, yet field reporting in May 2019 described demolitions and coercion instead.
Kept as rights archive, the RI charge sits beside Guardian reporting from the same weeks and remains a dated record of how official return drives collided with people’s fear.
Sources: Refugees International, Africanews