The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has dismissed media\u2019s allegations about the abduction and forced return of Eritrean refugees sheltered in refugee camps in restive Tigray State of Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
The rejection comes after UNHCR\u2019s delegation led by Country Representative Ann Allen Encontre paid a visit to Mai-Ani and Adi-Harush refugee camps in Tigray region accompanied by officials from the Agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) of Ethiopia.<\/p>\n
The officials held discussion with refugee representatives in the stated camps based on the media concerns about the whole situation of the camps and the way forward to improve quality of services.<\/p>\n
UNHCR Ethiopia Spokesperson Chris Melzer told local media that the media\u2019s accusation about the abduction and forced return of Eritrean refugees is not confirmed by the testimonies of refugee representatives.<\/p>\n
The UNHCR officials also witnessed that the majority of refugees are still residing in the camps.
\n\u201cNow the situation is significantly improved and our partner the World Food Program (WFP) has been carrying out food distribution for the month of January. <\/p>\n
The refugees were also obtained WFP\u2019s food ration in last month and we are confirmed that they will no longer be starved.\u201d he underlined.<\/p>\n
Applauding efforts the government of Ethiopia has done to ensure international standard of services for refugees, Chris reaffirmed UNHCR\u2019s support to address challenges that have been caused by the interruption of tap water supply as well as education and health service delivery.<\/p>\n
Public Relations Officer at ARRA, Beakal Nigussie on his part said the basic and social services for Eritrean refugees has now been resumed in Mai-Ani and Adi-Harush refugee camps.<\/p>\n
Besides the ongoing food distribution process for the month of January, which was carried out for the second time, different service provision centers have also been made to resume operation in the camps, he said.<\/p>\n
Noting that over 900,000 refugees sheltered in the country, he indicated that the number of refugees affected by the interruption of services due to the law enforcement operation is very insignificant.
\nBeakal highlighted that consolidated efforts are underway to encourage global actors to enhance their support for Ethiopia\u2019s efforts to avail the crucial services to refugees that are sheltered in the 26 camps spread across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has dismissed media\u2019s allegations about the abduction and forced return of Eritrean refugees sheltered in refugee camps in restive Tigray State of Ethiopia. The rejection comes after UNHCR\u2019s delegation led by Country Representative Ann Allen Encontre paid a visit to Mai-Ani and Adi-Harush refugee camps in Tigray […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":346364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Eritrean-refugees-1.jpg?fit=299%2C168&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1s6u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346365,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346362\/revisions\/346365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}