Ethiopia assisting citizens ordered to leave

Ethiopia’s government has been providing transport and food rations for thousands of illegal immigrants ordered to leave Djibouti by 15 September, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told IRIN on Friday.

"We are assisting the immigrants," said a spokesman from the foreign ministry in the capital, Addis Ababa. "Most of them have links here already. For those who do not have the resources to come to Ethiopia, then we have been supporting them from Djibouti. We have been providing transport services and other help."

Since the order, announced in July, some 42,000 people have left the tiny Red Sea state, many of them travelling to Ethiopia.

The crackdown on illegal immigrants - who are mainly from Somalia, Ethiopia and Yemen - is thought to be motivated by economic and security concerns.

Thousands of them thronged to a transit centre in Djibouti, established by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in an attempt to apply for asylum and legalise their stay.

The UNHCR said it was struggling to cope with the numbers who turned up at the transit camp.

Families ordered to leave Djibouti have also been gathering in the Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa, some 500 kilometres east of Addis Ababa. "These people were not registered, they are illegal," the spokesman said. "They are not only Ethiopians," he added.

Thousands of migrants leave Ethiopia each year in search of work abroad, according to the International Office for Migration (IOM). Many head for Djibouti and the Middle East.