Annan urges reversal of evictions

The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appealed to both Ethiopia and Eritrea to reconsider their respective positions on the eviction of each other’s nationals. Making his appeal in a report submitted to the Security Council on 5 September, he said the evictions had occasioned great suffering and emotional distress, and urged both parties to comply with international human rights conventions. Annan expressed particular concern over the circumstances in which 704 persons of Eritrean descent were sent from Ethiopia to Eritrea on 25 June 2001 without the assistance of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The Secretary-General’s report said the ICRC later withdrew from the repatriation process when it became clear that “the manner in which these repatriations were carried out was not in accordance with international humanitarian law”. When the UN Mission for Ethiopia and Eritrea protested against the way in which the repatriations were carried out, the Ethiopian government replied that the people had been repatriated to Eritrea of their own free will.