The United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) today released key operational updates from the refugee response in Ethiopia, including Eritrean refugees in Tigray and efforts to prevent and respond to COVID-19.
COVID-19 context: As of 7 May 2021, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH) reported 261,580 coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and 3,840 deaths in the country. A total of 1,287,801 people in priority groups were vaccinated against COVID-19, including 1,218 refugees.
Tigray Emergency: The humanitarian situation across the Tigray Region remains deeply concerning for refugees, the internally displaced and host communities. Civilians have endured six months of conflict with only extremely limited basic services and assistance available, leading to a significant escalation in humanitarian needs with new displacement ongoing.
Thousands of asylum seekers from South Sudan have been stuck for months in appalling conditions in a reception centre in Gambella region, western Ethiopia. People are without meaningful access to essential services, especially food. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is worried that conditions will deteriorate even further in the upcoming rainy season.
Nyaluak Tang , her husband and six children walked for almost one month from South Sudan’s Jonglei State to the Ethiopian border village of Pagak, where they arrived in August 2020.
“We left because of the severe floods in our district, which left us without food,” says Nyaluak. “Another reason was insecurity. One of our children was abducted by another ethnic group, and we feared for the safety of our other children.”
ADDIS ABABA, (CAJ News) – TRAGEDY is unfolding at the Ethiopia-South Sudan border where a fifth of refugee children are acutely malnourished.
The crisis is developing rapidly while global attention is on the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region following an uprising late last year.
Numbers of South Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers driven into Ethiopia by conflict, food insecurity and flooding in South Sudan have doubled in recent weeks.
Action Against Hunger revealed it conducted a mass screening of about 1 800 refugee children younger than five years old in the Pagak Reception Centre last month.
The new data indicates that more than 20 percent of the children were acutely malnourished.
UNHCR Ethiopia COVID-19 and Operational Update 24 February 2021
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COVID-19 context: As of 23 February 2021, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH) reported 154,257 coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and 2,305 deaths in the country. Ethiopia is currently registering one of the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases in Africa, and there is a recent rise in the number of cases as well as deaths.
Community outreach: Over 2,500 trained health and community outreach workers are actively engaged in awareness raising, case investigations and management, as well as mitigation, prevention and control of the coronavirus.
Tigray Emergency: Thousands of Eritrean refugees, who were stranded in the town of Shire and surrounding areas [after fleeing Hitsats and Shimelba camps] continue to be relocated to Mai Aini and Adi-Harush camps. To date, 5,474 refugees have been relocated to the two camps, but lack of adequate shelter and communal facilities remains a major concern.