The United Nations has asked Ethiopia and
Eritrea to provide access to people in need along their border, the UN
Special Coordinator on Internal Displacement said today upon returning
from the region.
Briefing reporters at UN Headquarters
in New York, Special Coordinator Dennis McNamara said the Organization
had appealed to both sides to be allowed into the border area, where UN
peacekeepers are set to arrive to oversee the withdrawal of troops. "We've
asked for that access. ICRC [the International Committee of the Red Cross]
has it, we don't have it, we should have it -- there are civilians there,"
he observed.
Mr. McNamara said authorities in the two countries had responded well to the mission. "Ethiopia and Eritrea welcomed us, were with us, were in the debriefings, supported the mission's findings and have been very positive about it," he said.
Mr. McNamara said there were hundreds of thousands of displaced on both sides because of the past conflict between the two countries. He observed that these people were "civilians caught in the fighting, and as usual, the women and children [were] bearing the brunt of the men's war."
Addressing the larger implications of his mandate, the Special Coordinator called the problem of internal displacement -- as opposed to refugee cross-border movements -- a "massive, global one." He noted that there were an estimated 25-30 million people around the world who had been displaced within their countries because of fighting, adding that another 20 million or more were displaced by natural disasters.
Mr. McNamara noted that there was no agency designated to deal with this "hidden humanitarian problem." While there had been efforts by UN agencies to meet the needs of the internally displaced, governments had not provided commensurate support. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for example, had received only $2 million out of its appeal for $11 million to help internally displaced persons.
The good news, he said, was that the UN was "grappling with this problem very seriously." Mr. McNamara's trip to the Horn of Africa was part of this effort, and future trips have been planned for Angola, Burundi, Colombia and Indonesia. The aim of these visits is to assess current efforts to assist the internally displaced and to make proposals to strengthen the future response.