In July 2005 I accepted a short deployment mission to Eritrea, a month later I arrived in the early morning in Asmara. My knowledge about Eritrea was at that point very modest to say the least, but due to a previous working experience with the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service and with the UNHCR in Ghana I had at least acquired some basic knowledge concerning the main refugee groups in Eritrea: Sudanese and Somalis. I also had gained lots of experience interviewing asylum seekers from various countries and assessing their claims.

Refugees in Eritrea face multiple hardships. First of all there is the unfriendly climate. The heat and humidity makes living conditions in the refugee camps very tough. Refugees in Eritrea are officially not allowed to work, unless they have been issued an Eritrean working permit. Travelling in Eritrea is another problem. To move from the camp to the capital you need a travel permit. These were only issued in certain cases. To earn some pocket money the refugees were involved in seasonal work. Some of them worked in the harbour doing manual labour as well. Earning a stable income in these circumstances is hardly possible. The political situation in Eritrea is quite complex. The relationship between Eritrea and Sudan was tense in the past. One can imagine the impact on the lives of the Sudanese refugees. Many of them were frequently harassed and accused of having been spies in the past.

In Eritrea there are two main refugee camps: Elit Refugee Camp, located not far from the Sudanese and Ethiopian border and inhabited by several hundred Sudanese refugees, and Emkulu Refugee Camp, close to the main Eritrean port Massawa. The population in Emkulu Refugee Camp was of Somali origin.

Sudanese refugees in Elit Camp

When I arrived in Eritrea, the tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea was mounting and as a result the security situation for the Sudanese refugees deteriorated. So the office in Asmara decided that the best option for me was to start processing the cases of the Sudanese refugees staying in Elit Camp. Most of the Sudanese staying in Elit had arrived many years ago in Eritrea, but in all these years they had not been able to gain anything from their forced exile. The fact that the camp population consisted of northerners, southerners and people from Darfur did not make their situation easier; it caused quite some tension in the past.

The refugee claims of the Sudanese varied widely and were quite complicated. Luckily, interviewing refugees and analysing claims is one of the aspects I enjoy most about this work. The individual case files contained hardly any documents despite the fact that some of them had stayed in the country for more than ten years. So the first step was to conduct refugee status determination interviews to get a clear picture of the circumstances that caused them to flee to Eritrea and establish the reasons why they were unable to return to Sudan. Many of the refugees had belonged to various (political) movements and had been involved in a wide range of political activities in the past. After completing the interview, I assessed their refugee claim and established if the individual had resettlement needs. There were various resettlement criteria applicable to the Sudanese refugees in Eritrea: lack of local integration prospects (the Sudanese refugees were not allowed to participate in the Eritrean society), legal and physical protection needs (due to the tension in this part of the country the safety for these refugees could not be guaranteed and some of them had experienced problems with the Eritrean police) and survivors/victims of violence/ torture. Besides, there were a number of elderly refugees staying in the camp who had no care-takers and some individuals needed medical attention.

Throughout this period I was lucky to receive a lot of support from the Protection Unit in Asmara. I was, for example, most of the time accompanied by a translator from their office. Besides that, while I was on mission another member of the Protection Unit often joined me, this facilitated the work; it is of course a great advantage if you can discuss difficult cases in the evening after work.

Unfortunately, after approximately two months, when we had interviewed almost half of the camp population, the security situation deteriorated and, subsequently, we were no longer allowed to operate in this part of the country. This was a sad moment for me because there was still a lot of work to be done: many more refugees needed to be interviewed and many refugees were actually in need of resettlement. But yet we could not prepare their cases.

Somali refugees in Emkulu Camp

After my sudden return to Asmara I discussed with my supervisor where I could go. Due to the continuous uncertainty of the security situation, we decided it was best for me to focus on the Somali refugee population in Emkulu. This is a fairly large refugee camp with a population of 3,000 to 4,000 individuals. Some of them arrived in Eritrea as early as 1992 or 1993, others arrived just recently in 2004.

Up until 2005, Emkulu had most of the time been neglected by missions from resettlement countries, therefore the news of the resettlement interviews created great anxiety in the camp. All refugees claimed that it was definitely their turn to be interviewed since they had waited for a very long time. We decided to schedule the cases according to their date of arrival in Eritrea but it was clear that we had to explain carefully who was going to be interviewed and how. So we consulted with the camp elders first and they informed the camp population about the way the interviews were going to be scheduled.

Another difficulty was establishing the `family composition' (who makes up a family) which could be pretty complicated in some cases but is essential as we needed to ensure that the members of one family were not separated. For example: one refugee who had arrived in 1992 married a refugee who had arrived in the camp in 2000. After they married, the couple had two children. Some time later, however, the couple divorced and the `principle applicant' (the refugee that holds the refugee claim) remarried. Deciding in such cases, who is to be part of the resettlement submission becomes very difficult.

I stayed for almost three weeks in the camp interviewing two large families or four small families a day. Of all the cases I interviewed in Emkulu, I remember clearly one Somali family with a disabled child, Warda. This small girl was really in a deplorable condition. She could not walk and had to be carried wherever she went. This created a heavy burden on her family. Due to this, Warda's father was not able to earn some extra pocket money outside the camp. The rest of the family, the siblings of the girl especially, suffered as well as they were tasked with dealing with the household chores and with finding some small jobs to make ends meet. In summertime, the temperature in this camp could easily rise to about 40 degrees which created unbearable living conditions. The time I arrived in the camp, the little girl's health situation deteriorated further due to sickness and became life threatening. Warda needed immediate medical attention and thus we submitted her case as an 'emergency case' to Norway.

This situation shows clearly the vital importance of emergency resettlement referrals. There are actually not that many resettlement countries that do have a programme for emergency cases but some of the European resettlement countries are actually very efficient in this aspect of resettlement. There is not only the Norwegian Resettlement programme but as well the Dutch and the Swedish resettlement programmes which can get cases transferred to their new country of asylum in a couple of weeks.

Some reflections

 Thinking back about this mission, I remember my colleagues, of course, but I remember as well the many different landscapes of Eritrea. The main office was located in Asmara, high up in the mountains. One of the camps was not very far from the Red Sea (one Sunday afternoon I was able to do some snorkelling) and the other one could be found in the very dry area not far from Sudan. The roads going from Asmara to these places were absolutely breathtaking. I was fascinated with the creativity of the refugees in the camps in finding ways of earning a little bit of extra cash.

Some refugee faces I will also not easily forget: the old Sudanese man, a musician, who moved from place to place and who had been waiting for many years in his small shelter in a refugee camp without knowing the whereabouts of any of his relatives. He was absolutely delighted about the idea of starting a new life elsewhere. I will never forget the face of the 11-year-old Somali boy, Ahmed, who was born and raised in the camp. He kept on asking during the interview about life outside the camp; he wondered where all the cars were going to and who repeated proudly, at least 10 times, that he was the best of his class!

These Somali refugees faced a dead-end situation due to the absence of the possibility for local integration and the ongoing civil war in their country of origin which eliminated repatriation as an option. But especially for the children, the camp situation is hopeless. I cannot imagine having to live day-in-day-out in an enclosed environment, with nothing to do and nothing to hope for. A situation for which resettlement truly is the only alternative.

Tycho Walaardt, a Dutch national, worked as an ICMC deployee for UNHCR in two refugee camps in Eritrea (northern East Africa) from August until December 2005.