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ESAT News November 27, 2013
Several Ethiopian mothers and children are suffering from hunger and thirst after the scheduled flight of several Ethiopian mothers and children who were to be repatriated to Ethiopia from Riyadh has been cancelled yesterday.
The mothers and children are crying for help. They say they have been thrown into the streets and are dying from lack of drinking water. ESAT has directly contacted the migrants.
Meanwhile, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has stated that it has assisted over 21,000 Ethiopian returnees arriving home on Ethiopian government charter flights from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) over the past 12 days.
According to IOM, it provides the returnees, who are returning with up to 12 charters a day from the KSA to Addis Ababa, with overnight accommodation, food, water, shoes and money for transport to their places of origin. It added and said that the exact number of Ethiopian migrant workers in the KSA was unknown, but the Ethiopian government expects more to return in the coming months.
IOM indicated that it will need approximately USD 4.5 million to adequately support 30,000 returnees. This figure could increase in coming weeks depending on the actual number of arrivals.
Arab News on its part reported that the Saudi government was covering the costs of returning migrants and there is a plan to repatriate 32,000 Ethiopians within the coming days. More 50,000 Ethiopians will be returned in the coming days.
What the Ethiopian government has been doing for the returning migrants has not been known so far. “if IOM and the Saudi government are covering the costs?” Some observers ask, “then is the sole role of the Ethiopian government to stand for photographs with the returnees?”.
An employee of the Ethiopian Airlines said that the migrants are being brought back by IOM whereas the Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs and other ministers are busy having photographs with the returnees.
posted by samuale Tewelde
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