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Ethiopia - Over 80,000 people with Eritrean blood were deported from Ethiopia when a border dispute began between the two countries in June 1998. Of these, about 9,000 people who were expelled from the rural Tigray region, were brought to Shelab, a temporary camp outside the small town of Adirde, Eritrea.
The government of Eritrea plans to permanently relocate these families.
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We sat by a wall and cried all day. We questioned ourselves, ‘What kind of government is it that separates a mother from her children?’
The children were deported later. It took them several weeks to walk. Fortunately, my children were fine. After one month, they were happy and they were crying to see me.
We are, of course, very angry with Ethiopia. You see the color of my hair is changing because of that. Of course, my greatest hope is that we can now have peace. My wish to be as before: to be a family and to drink milk. We would like our children which are born to grow, and we would like them to have a productive future. We are hard working people but we need some assistance in the beginning. My greatest fear is the fighting between countries. We must first work peacefully amongst ourselves.
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| “I was born
in Tegray (Ethiopia) in the village of Gobizghi. I am about
42 years old. I am not sure the date of my birth because my
father who kept the records died and the village we came from
no longer exists.” |
This is an excerpt of Nighisti's story as written for the Women and
War Project.
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…The police called us for a meeting. Because of our Eritrean blood we were deported. They called the meeting at 5 o'clock in the morning and made us go while our children slept. We never did return to our homes. We were surrounded by soldiers and told to start following these trucks on foot. Every mother with very young children could not bring them. My husband was arrested (not only him, but many others) and my children remained in Ethiopia.
We were all women who were walking. There were about 240 women all deported together and we had all left our children behind. We walked all day for seven days without food. We were bare handed and only had the clothes on our body. We had nothing to eat for those seven days. Four mothers gave birth along the way. We left them on the border and took the babies inside Eritrea. Some government officials there brought the mothers later by car. An elderly woman died. We tried to carry her, but unfortunately she did not live.
I arrived to Eritrea a week later. We were very worried about the children. We had been crying and were very sad. We could not even eat or drink.
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