IRIN Focus on war displacement

Thousands of people are fleeing Ethiopian advances in southern and western Eritrea. Since Saturday, some 20,000 have congregated in Debarwa, forty kilometres south of Asmara, from the southern towns and villages of Adi Quale, Imni Haile, Areza and Maimine. The evacuees said they fled villages under heavy artillery and aerial bombardment, and had taken up to seven days to travel by foot and truck. Most are women and children, who carry few possessions other than bundles of clothes and a few household implements. They are staying in an abandoned elementary school on the outskirts of Debarwa. Trucks and trailers packed with up to 250 people at a time continue to arrive. The exodus began in earnest after Eritrea announced it would withdraw its troops from midnight on 25 May on the Zalambesa, Tsorona and Bure fronts in line with the stalled Organisation of African Unity peace plan. Ethiopia, which has the upper hand militarily, declared the withdrawal an act of defeat and moved into the areas. Civilians immediately fled from heavy artillery attacks in Senafe and Adi Khei, including from two large camps for the displaced set up in the last six months on the outskirts of Senafe. People who had displaced to the hills earlier on in the renewed conflict abandoned all areas south of Mendefera and moved to Debarwa. Mendefera, a regional administrative centre, is now being used only as a transit point as it has been a target for attacks itself - many of its citizens have already evacuated. The local administration has assisted evacuees with trucks. Displaced local administration officials have arrived in centres with their village populations. Some people who fled areas under attack told IRIN that the military and local administration told them to leave and organised transport for them; others left areas on their own initiative as they witnessed Eritrean troops pulling back. Humanitarian agencies and journalists watched truck-loads of the displaced arrive on Sunday at an old elementary school in Debarwa, where the local administration had registered 18,000 IDPs and estimated they would receive up to 30,000 over the next few days. UN representatives and aid workers witnessing the arrival accept existing government figures - which claim more than 500,000 are war displaced - and say the figure could increase. Freweini Woldai, 30, told IRIN on Sunday she had fled Adenafi on the southern border one week ago when it came under heavy bombardment. In a group of about twenty women and children, four of her young children walked while she carried an eighteen month child on her back and a three week old baby in her arms. She said she could not carry possessions, but received some food on the way from soldiers and villagers. At first they hid in the hills, then walked for a week to Mendefera. She reached Mendefera on May 26, and came by truck to Debarwa the following day. In a vulnerable physical state because of the birth, she showed signs of acute distress, and said she had to leave her husband in the village with their livestock. Sheltering by the wall in the Elementary School centre, she had just received 15 kg of locally mixed “DMK” (includes sorghum, milk, carrot, sugar, and is made into a dry cake) from the local administration, but had no utensils to cook it. Kaleab Haile, Director of Social Services with Debarwa administration, told IRIN that although the secondary school was being used as an emergency centre, the displaced would be dispersed along the river bed - where there is some natural shade - in the hope that emergency shelter and food could be provided by the international community. He said high concentrations of people would encourage disease and sanitation problems. To date, the congregation in Debarwa is the most visible displacement, and in obvious need of immediate assistance. Previous displacement in the west, following the fall of the regional capital Barentu, was difficult to monitor for international observers as many of the fleeing people were absorbed by the local population in areas far from the capital. However, when humanitarian agencies visited sites in the west last Friday and talked to concentrations of displaced, local administration figures were confirmed “plausible”. In Dige, Gash Barka zone, 221 kilometres west of Asmara, about 5,000 displaced people are living along the dry bed of the Mogoraib river. Many are from Adi Kashi IDP camp, formerly near Barentu, which housed about 20,000 people (displaced in earlier phases of the war). The entire population of the camp is reported to have been displaced again. There were also new arrivals from Tokombia, who had fled because of shelling and fear of air bombardment. Tiblet Yemane, 33, with six children between the age of 3 months and 15 years told IRIN she fled after Tokombia was shelled just two days after the conflict resumed. She remained in the area for a few days until “the military told us to get out”. Moving in a group of about thirty she said soldiers took them on trucks halfway to Dige, and then they walked for three days. She carried some military biscuits and had been given a cooking pot by villagers. International agencies who visited IDP sites in the west say the very high number of women and children, with a high proportion of children under the age of five, make the groups very vulnerable. International observers estimate that about 25 percent are women, and 65-70 percent children. Humanitarian sources told IRIN that there were a great number of people who had sought refuge in valleys, mountains and along river beds which were only accessible by foot, which needed “serious attention” as they may be the most needy. In Dige, the Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission (ERREC) had started distributions of food to some 661 registered families who included pregnant and breast-feeding women, of milk powder, oil, small packs of milk, and packs of dates donated by Saudi Arabia last year. The dry river bed, lined with palm trees and scrub, provided some shade in a searingly hot and inhospitable climate. One international humanitarian worker told IRIN that lack of shade and shelter, with the heat, wind and dust, made the situation of shelterless IDPs “unbearable”. Government figures are based on the populations of towns and villages affected, which is an accurate number of displaced but not always indicative of those in need of immediate assistance. There is a strong tradition of self-reliance in a country where a tiny 3.5 million population fought thirty years of war - as the former Ethiopian Red Sea province - before gaining de facto independence in 1991. The displaced receive immediate support from villagers - food and sometimes shelter - as well as organised support from the local authorities and ERREC. In Forto, western Eritrea, some 680 households who had fled Haykota reported that the town, which has a population of 39,000, was now empty. Most of the IDPs sitting under bushes in Forto had fled twelve days ago because of aerial bombardment and shelling, but had managed to later retrieve beds, furniture, chairs, household and business items by trucks that were returning to the town to shuttle out the possessions. The governor, Ahmed Furuj, had been displaced with his people, said other people in the town had reportedly displaced to Tamarat, Forto, Adi Bara and Girmaika. Conditions of flight are initially mitigated by a symbiotic relationship between the military and the civilian population - unusual compared to civil war-driven emergencies typical of the region. The military assist with transporting civilians and frequently provide military rations of biscuits and canned meat. Information of military assistance by civilians was substantiated in sites visited in Dige, Forto and Girmaika (Gash Barka zone) by empty cans, and new arrivals carrying military biscuits. “Every family has minimum of one or two people on the front”, government spokesperson Yemane Gebremeskel told IRIN, accounting for the close relationship between civilians and military. He admitted that the withdrawal on the central and southern front had endangered civilians but said he did not believe it would undermine this relationship - “there is not a wide gap, and the need for withdrawal is understood”. Middle class civilians evacuating along the Adi Khei-Asmara road were seen by IRIN giving bread and water to the withdrawing military, in much the same spirit as food given to soldiers who are sent off to the front. One of the main concerns for UN and international agencies now is how sustainable local and national support systems can be when numbers of displaced are increasing daily. For example, Girmaika, on the Sudan border, has a population of 4,800 and now hosts 4,028 locally registered displaced; Debarwa has a town population of some 8,000 and now hosts more than 20,000 displaced. There are also many sites in western Eritrea which are only accessible by foot making it difficult for immediate humanitarian access and monitoring. In meetings between international agencies and ERREC over the last three days, international agencies have impressed upon ERREC that now is a crucial time to give an accurate picture of organisational and trucking capacity, for an emergency which, unless addressed, could create a humanitarian tragedy by mid-June. “This could get too big for ERREC to handle”, humanitarian sources told IRIN.