The plight of Sudanese trapped in the Olala forest in Ethiopia’s Amhara region has cast a shadow over children as they issue appeals and appeals via digital platforms due to the lack of security in the camps that housed some 9,000 refugees.
On Sunday, activists circulated videos monitoring the suffering of Sudanese children trapped in forests, amid complaints from hunger-striking families about the lack of safety and the deterioration of basic services in the forests despite the rains.
A child said she had lost a sense of security since entering the camp in Ethiopia, noting that she had lost her entire family except for her sister.
The child recounted her suffering in tears in a video: “We came out of the camp to the forest because of the lack of security, every day I beat and feel myself in Sudan.”
“The Ethiopian government has detained us inside the forest for 28 days,” another said in a video and asked, “Where are the humanitarian organizations that care about children, women and human rights?”
A Sudanese woman also spoke about the impact of heavy rains in the forests on thousands of refugees, noting that her daughter, her little girl, suffers from fever in light of the scarcity of medicines and treatment.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has expressed grave concern that some a thousand refugees have left the camp in the Amhara region due to fears of security incidents and inadequate services.
Some members of the group have recently begun a hunger strike, which is of great concern in the broader context of the volatile security situation, UNHCR said in a statement.
The Coordination of Refugees in the Amhara region explained that the number of refugees affected by security and food exceeds 6,000 refugees, not a thousand refugees, as stated in the UNHCR statement.
The coordination pointed out that the shortage of food supplies poses a major challenge to refugees, in addition to their exposure to killings, rape, abductions and intimidation by unidentified gunmen.
Ethiopia now hosts more than a million refugees, making it Africa’s second-largest refugee-hosting country, according to the United Nations.
The Kumar refugee site was hosting about 6,000 people, mostly from Sudan, Eritrea and South Sudan.
In contrast, the Olala refugee site was home to more than two thousand people, mostly Sudanese and South Sudanese refugees, according to UNHCR.
Since mid-April 2023, the army, led by Sovereign Council President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (Hemedti), have been fighting battles that have left about 15,000 dead and more than 8 million displaced and refugees, according to the United Nations.
Source : Al Jazeera +Al-Yurae+ Agencies
