Somalilandsun- Amnesty International and Ogaden refugee Council (ORC) discussed Thursday the dire consequences it will lead for refugees and asylees if Kenya shuts down the camps, according to the ORC’s Facebook page.
The government of Kenya announced last month that it plans to close the World’s largest refugee camp which hosts 350,000, of whom 100, 000 are refugees from Ogaden.
The meeting, organized by the Amnesty International has been discussed the possible ways to raise issues of the asylees from Gambella, Oromia, and Ogaden, who could not return to their homeland for fear of detention, torture and possibly persecution.
Human Rights Watch and Kituo Cha Sheria, another human rights organization based in Kenya were invited to attend the meeting.
Over the last six years, the Ethiopian government has been intimidating the neighboring countries to extradite journalists and activists believed to be critics of the government’s policy.
Last year, Eng. Ahmed Sadik, head of the Ogaden Refugee Council, called on the government of Kenya to be aware of Ethiopian assailants and those conspiring with them to ensure that they would not harm anyone on Kenyan territory.
In an interview with Al-Jazeera Abdirahman Mahdi of ONLF said last week that “Ethiopia is boiling” but also began to break up along ethnic lines. Ogaden, Oromia, and Gambella are three of 15 nations that want to gain full Independence from the minority-ruled Abyssinia, the so-called “New Ethiopia” of Tigray.
When the first ever legitimate Ogaden Parliament overwhelmingly voted yes for self-determination in 1994 the region quickly became the central theater of fighting.
The Tigrayans targeted Ogaden civilians in areas under their control in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The war in Ogaden claimed the lives of 100s of thousands and forced millions to flee from the occupied Ogaden.
Oromo borders Djibouti, Oromia, Kenya, and Somalia. The people are predominantly ethnic Somalis. The region was Italian and English-colony but in 1954, the English handed over to Ethiopia.
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