Tuesday, February 10, 2009
“UNHCR and its humanitarian partners have been dispatching staff and essential relief supplies to the border area of Dolo-Ado, in the Somali region of south-east Ethiopia where there are now an estimated 10,000 new refugees who have fled insecurity in neighbouring Somalia since the beginning of the year,” said UNHCR Ethiopia office.
According to the office, about 150 Somalis are now crossing the border each day and it is likely that the number of new arrivals will increase further over the next few weeks.
Last week, UNHCR dispatched six trucks carrying an assortment of relief items from Addis Ababa.
“The influx has increased after the Ethiopian forces ended their two-year presence in Somalia last month,” said UNHCR.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has sent food rations for two weeks and is airlifting high-nutrition biscuits from its emergency stocks in Tanzania.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is pre-positioning vaccines, medicines and other medical supplies based on their emergency check-list, while UNICEF is looking at supporting the water sector and eventually the primary education sector.
“Formal registration and status determination interviews are yet to start, but information gathered during informal discussions with many of the refugees revealed that they fled general insecurity and fear of mistreatment by Al Shabab,” added UNHCR.
To date, the UNHCR is said to have already extended international protection to more than 33,000 Somali refugees in three camps in Ethiopia.
Source: APA, Feb 10, 2009