8. The Complainant states that the Respondent State, the UNHCR and the Government of Ethiopia entered
into an agreement to forcibly repatriate them. This action consisted of several steps, including all of the
following: the withholding of social welfare benefits such a medical attention, food, clothing, and housing
entitlements; and the implementation of an unfair screening procedure.
9. The Complainant states that some of the refugees who protested the removal of their refugee status
were sometimes arrested and deported or threatened with arrest and deportation, forcing many of them to
flee to neighbouring countries.
10. The Complainant further alleges that at the time, Ethiopia was involved in a full-scale international
armed conflict with its neighbour Eritrea.
11. The Complainant states that the UNHCR and the Respondent State agreed bi-laterally to establish a
screening procedure. The Complainant alleges that this procedure did not provide the basic minimum
standards of due process. For example, the refugees were not allowed to be legally represented; the
Government of Sudan and/or the UNHCR recruited unqualified persons to do the screening. The screening
did not take into account the 1969 African Refugee Convention or the African Charter in their evaluation of
individual cases; the screenings did not start until months after the threat of forcible refoulement had been
made, and implemented in large parts. Interpreters were recruited from the Ethiopian Embassy in Khartoum
- the embassy of the State from which they harboured or had a recognised, well-founded fear of
persecution.
12. The Complainant states that some of the refugees had lived and settled in Sudan for up to thirty years;
that many of them are opponents of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and
the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), ruling the country since 1991. The Complainant states that
many refugees feared that they would be sent to the Ethiopia/Eritrea warfront, due to the war which was
ongoing during the whole of 2000 or that they would be mistreated or even killed by the Ethiopian
Government.
13. The Complainant states that some of the refugees, such as Mr Luel Kassa, who was forced to return in
early 2001, were arrested upon return; and others fled Ethiopia again to Sudan or a third country as soon
as they were able to.
14. The Complainant states further that many of the estimated 14,000 Ethiopian refugees who are still living
in Sudan do not wish to return to Ethiopia because they have a well-founded fear of persecution or because
they are fleeing the war and famine in Ethiopia.
15. The Complainant states that in March 2001, more than 1,700 Ethiopian refugees in Port Sudan and
Khartoum staged a hunger strike to protest their return. Their main complaint: the unfair process for
determining their status.
16. Since March 2001, the Complainant has contacted the Government of Sudan and the UNHCR in an
effort to resolve this matter, but without success.
17. The Complainant states that although some refugees were allowed to stay in Sudan, others remained
without the consent of the Government of Sudan and feared the prospect of immediate deportation without
due process of law. The Complainant further alleges that many of these refugees live in inhuman conditions
after being denied the basic necessities of life.
Complaint
18. The Complainant alleges violations of Articles 4, 5, 6, 12(3), (4) and (5) of the African Charter on
Human and Peoples' Rights (African Charter).
Procedure
19. The complaint was received at the Secretariat of the African Commission on 22 February 2000.
20. At the 27th Ordinary Session held from 27th April to 11th May 2000 in Algiers, Algeria, the African
Commission decided to be seized of the communication and requested the parties to address it on the
exhaustion of domestic remedies.
21. The above decision was communicated to the parties on 30 June 2000.
22. At its 28th Ordinary Session held from 23 October to 6 November 2000 in Cotonou, Benin, the African
Commission decided to defer consideration of this communication to the 29th Ordinary Session.
23. On 13th March 2001, the Secretariat received the Complainant's submissions on admissibility.
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