| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Horn |
| Ethiopia Facing Flood of S.Sudan Refugees |
| 2014-07-04 |
| [AnNahar] Æthiopia is facing a huge wave of refugees from South Sudan, where the specter of famine threatens to heap further misery on a people already blighted by civil war, the U.N.'s food aid agency warned on Wednesday. "The numbers are increasing exponentially in a very short period of time," said Abdou Dieng, head of the World Food Program's Æthiopia operations. More than 158,000 South Sudanese refugees have already crossed the border to reach camps in neighboring Æthiopia, according to U.N. figures released Wednesday. At least 1,500 more are arriving every week, and the U.N. forecasts South Sudanese refugee numbers could double to 300,000 by the end of the year. "The situation is not improving in South Sudan, so we expect that they will continue to come. If there is a famine in South Sudan, as many people think there will be, that will push more people to come into Æthiopia," he told news hounds. All told there are currently almost 570,000 refugees -- largely women and kiddies -- in camps in the country. Apart from the South Sudanese, most are from Somalia, which huge numbers fled amid conflict and a 2011 drought, and Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... , where mounting numbers are escaping the iron grip of the country's regime. "The government has a policy that they call the 'open-door policy' for refugees. Æthiopia today is hosting one of the biggest refugee numbers, without talking too much about it," said Dieng. The U.N. needs around $20 million (14.6 million euros) per month to help feed refugees in Æthiopia, but is facing a massive funding shortfall and fears that its coffers will be empty by October, he added. South Sudan only gained its independence from Sudan three years ago after decades of fighting, and has been ravaged by ethnically-tinged conflict between rebels and the government since December. The fighting has driven more than one million people from their homes, meaning that many farmers have missed the planting season. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |