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Ethiopian Refugees In Sudan Protesting Against Repatriation Plan
KHARTOUM, Jan 29 (News Agencies) - Scores of Ethiopian refugees living in Sudan are protesting to the U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) over a plan for them to return home or lose their refugee status, they said Monday.
The group, which staged a protest outside UNHCR offices on Sunday, object to a decision by the UNHCR to deprive them of their refugee status because the reasons that drove them from Ethiopia vanished with Mengistu Haile Meriam's 1991 ouster.
The decision was based on a regulation called a "cessation clause."
Under the 1993 voluntary repatriation agreement between Sudan, Ethiopia and the UNHCR, the refugees may now accept to be repatriated with UNHCR help or try to stay in Sudan.
If they stay here, they would lose the right to U.N. food and financial aid and may even have to leave the country if they fail to obtain residency here.
In Ethiopia, they fear they could be persecuted as opponents of the current government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
The charge d'affaires at the Ethiopian embassy, Abdu Legesse Bushra, denied they would face persecution, saying that there are now four opposition parties operating legally.
The protesters said in their memorandum that inexperienced U.N. employees were screening people for refugee status and that they were being unwittingly helped by Ethiopian government "agents" posing as assistants and interpreters.
But Bushra denied the accusation and said the UNHCR has allowed about 900 Ethiopians in Port Sudan to stay in Sudan as political refugees, following a legitimate screening process.
Otherwise, he said the repatriation process is "proceeding smoothly", with about 5,000 of the 14,000 registered refugees so far returning home by trucks from eastern and central Sudan in the last month January.
Bushra said ever since the conclusion of the tripartite agreement in 1993, some 80,000 Ethiopian refugees have been repatriated, with the Ethiopian government committed to its pledge of "treating the returnees well."
In the early 1990s, Ethiopian refugees made up for more than 250,000 of refugees in Sudan, with most of them going back home on their own, said the charge d'affaires.
The cessation clause covers the refugees who arrived before 1991, but those coming to Sudan after that date can also apply for repatriation, he said.
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