Radio Erena: April 14, 2014
HRCE is pleased to announce the plan to release the 267 Eritrean refugees from Negad detention centre by the Djiboutian authority. Following Elsa Chyrum’s recent three day hunger strike in Geneva, the detained Eritrean refugees’ case in Djibouti was given urgent attention, and it has been decided that on Tuesday 15 April, all of them will be released. Some have been detained up to 6 years.
The detainees are mostly deserters from the enforced military conscription in Eritrea. However, because there is a border dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti, and these refugees have military training, they are treated as a security risk. Nine families (husbands, wives and some with children) have been separated, the wives and the children are at the refugee camp (Ali Addeh), and the husbands are detained incommunicado at Negad detention centre. They have been detained out of a misplaced fear – none of them were caught doing anything to harm the host country.
Once they are released, the UNHCR office will transfer them to Ali Adhee refugee camp in Djibouti.
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