Saturday, June 21, 2014

Ethiopia bearing brunt of South Sudan refugees-PressTV-



Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:50PM
Coletta Wanjohi, Press TV, Addis Ababa

Fact Corner
  • The world refugee day is being marked across the globe and Ethiopia is one of the countries that bear the heavy burden of catering for the displaced. Ethiopia is home to half a million refugees most of them from Somalia and South Sudan.
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According to the United Nations Human commission for refugees the current number of refugees is more than 50 million.Ethiopia is home to over half a million refugees and is also facing a daily influx of refugees from South Sudan.Over 200,000 refugees are from Somalia. The others are from Eritrea, Sudan and now South Sudan.
The number of refugee camps in Ethiopia has increased from 8 to 22 in past years. Since December 2013 when the conflict in South Sudan began over 147,000 refugees have fled to Ethiopia. They now live in country’s Gambella Region. The increase in the number of refugees means a strain on Ethiopia’s resources. This is the second time that Ethiopia is hosting refugees from south Sudan. In 1980s when the then Southern Sudan Autonomous Region was at war with the central government in Sudan, Ethiopia hosted 450,000 refugees from the region. The United Nations High commission for refugees says it needs over 200 million dollars to cater for a projected number of 350,000 South Sudan refugees, within a span of one year. If this number exceeds then the challenge will be much bigger. With an influx of an a average of 1200 refugees daily from South Sudan the government Ethiopia has been forced to open three new camps in past months. The latest camp which the government opened recently was filled with 25,000 south Sudan refugees within just 20 days. With 70% of the refugees from South Sudan being children below 18 years the agencies assisting Ethiopia with South Sudan refugees have a challenge of giving the children access to school , immunization and ensure nutrition programmes are running.


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