While arrivals have since stabilised, the unrestricted opening of the border initially led to a fourfold daily increase in Eritreans crossing and applying for refugee status. There are now around 175,000 Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia. Most have claimed refugee status: around 10,000 by the middle of October, according to UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency. “In 2016, approximately 80 percent of the Eritrean refugees left the camps in Tigray within the first 12 months after arriving in Ethiopia,” it said. “But now that the situation has changed significantly no one knows if and how the government might rethink its policy to Eritrean refugees.

Source: Ethiopian News November 15, 2018 15:56 UTC