Efforts by both governments to resolve the issues that have plagued them since the 1998 – 2000 border war are apparently making progress.
There are suggestions that Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, could visit Asmara this month – perhaps within a matter of days. These developments are very much to be welcomed.
But it is important that as the border issues are discussed the tens of thousands who suffered during and after the war should not be forgotten. They had their businesses seized, their homes damaged and they and their families were forced to leave the countries in which they had lived for many years. Some knew no other home.
by Human Rights Watch in 2003 summarised their suffering:
The Ethiopian government is known to have forcibly expelled an estimated 75,000 people of Eritrean origin during the war. The Eritrean government forcibly expelled or took part in the voluntary repatriation of an estimated 70,000 Ethiopians, notwithstanding persistent Eritrean government claims that it had no expulsion policy comparable to Ethiopia’s.
The full by is reproduced below.