ICRC on need for voluntary repatriation

A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday that it was important to make sure that any person being repatriated across the disputed Ethiopian-Eritrean border was moving voluntarily. “We must have the agreement of each concerned person, a one-to-one exchange wherein the person must answer the question: Do you agree to go or not?” Jean-Paul Jacquod, head of the ICRC delegation in Asmara, Eritrea, told AFP. The ICRC and the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea have expressed concern over a group of 722 Eritreans who arrived at the border last month. According to AFP, the ICRC spokesman expressed concern that it was the first involuntary repatriation since the two countries signed an accord to end the two year border war.

The ICRC declined to participate in the repatriation of the group of 722 on 25 June, because the Ethiopian government had refused to abide by the ICRC’s requirement that those being repatriated express their consent, AFP said. The ICRC had helped in the repatriation of 35,891 Ethiopians from Eritrea, and 911 Eritrean nations from Ethiopia during the past year, Jacquod told AFP.