Eritrean refugees still crossing into Sudan

More than 58,000 Eritrean refugees from the fighting had registered with the UNHCR at camps in Kassala state by Saturday, with more continuing to cross the border over the weekend. Aid workers said, however, that this number did not take into account thousands of people who were waiting for the long queues to register to subside. But a UNHCR spokesperson cautioned
that people were crossing back and forth across the border and it was not clear if all those arriving in Sudan were doing so as a result of fear of the Ethiopians. He told IRIN there had been no major influx since 29 May, when some 10,000 crossed into Sudan over 24 hours. This could happen again, he said, if the Ethiopian forces overran large pockets of displaced Eritreans waiting near the border. At present, however, it was not clear
how many Ethiopians remained in western Eritrea or exactly where they were. The Sudanese Commissioner for Refugees, Mohammed Ahmed al-Aghbash, told the official Sudanese news agency (SUNA) that the influx across the border was expected to increase over the next few days. A planned delivery by the WFP of 40 mt of food from the Italian government for the refugees was delayed over the weekend by clearance problems. But two Hercules
planes each carrying 18 mt from Lokichoggio in northern Kenya landed on Monday in Khartoum, from where the food was being immediately trucked to Khartoum, a WFP spokesperson said. A third flight was due on Tuesday. Plans to fly humanitarian supplies directly to Kassala have been hampered by what the Sudanese authorities say is a lack of facilities at the local
airport.

Meanwhile the English-language 'Yemen Times' reported on Monday that a total of 538 refugees had arrived in the Yemeni port of Al-Mukha after crossing the Red Sea from Assab. They included 349 Eritreans, 113 Somalis, 71 Ethiopians, three Djiboutis and two Sudanese.