In January 2020, the Government of Ethiopia announced a change in asylum policy, away from granting prima facie refugee status for Eritrean nationals towards a hybrid asylum system. The new procedures proposed for refugee status determination should comply with international standards and would mitigate the situation of an unknown, yet likely high number of undocumented Eritreans with specific needs with increased exposure to protection risks, including arbitrary arrest and detention, human trafficking and smuggling.
The COVID-19 pandemic affected access to territory and asylum for newly arriving asylum-seekers in Ethiopia. Following the Government’s decision to close land borders in March to curb the spread of COVID-19 and the five-month State of Emergency announced in April 2020, UNHCR’s Government counterpart, the Agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) temporarily suspended registration of new asylum-seekers across the country due to public health concerns. By the end of 2020, Ethiopia had not formally resumed admission of new arrivals, except certain exceptions on humanitarian grounds based on UNHCR’s advocacy.
The escalation of tension between the Federal Government and Tigray’s ruling party (TPLF) led to an armed conflict from 4 November 2020 in the Tigray region. Civilians have since been significantly affected and displaced within and outside of the Tigray region, including local populations and Eritrean refugees. Monitoring of the situation in the refugee camps and refugee-hosting areas, as well as timely delivery of humanitarian assistance remained a huge challenge due to access issues and the prevailing insecurity in most parts of the region. Two refugee camps hosting Eritrean refugees were destroyed, resulting in the residents being dispersed with Tigray and other regions in the country.
The outbreak of COVID-19 quickly changed the protection environment of refugee children across Ethiopia. Closure of schools, child and youth-friendly spaces and movement restrictions resulted in protection risks for refugee children, such as physical danger, gender-based violence and child labour. The pandemic also limited UNHCR’s and partners’ access to children at risk. In 2020, UNHCR and UNICEF committed to a transformative Blueprint partnership to ensure a fair deal for refugee children, in line with the Global Compact on Refugees and as per the commitments made at the Global Refugee Forum in December 2019.
The operation registered 46,296 unaccompanied and separated children across the operation with 56.4% of best interests assessments conducted. While UNHCR and stakeholders such as UNICEF promoted the inclusion of children in the national system, the national child protection systems may not be adequate to effectively identify and respond to the specific protection needs of refugee children.
Survivors of gender-based violence are currently being hosted either within their communities, or referred to the Addis Ababa safehouse, managed by a partner. Neither of the options are deemed ideal. There are one-stop centres run by the Government of Ethiopia that provide gender-based violence response services. Limited economic empowerment opportunities for girls and women remain a key challenge. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, gender-based violence actors scaled-down awareness campaigns, targeting smaller groups. However, mass awareness campaigns were conducted on major events such as International Women's Day and 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence. The operation integrated gender-based violence risk mitigation during its the end of year planning exercise, in line with the existing National Action Plan on mainstreaming of gender-based violence risk mitigation.
PSEA staff capacity development was an identified gap in the operation, with PSEA focal people in need of periodic trainings to deliver their functions.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, return movements from Kenya, Djibouti, Yemen, Sudan and South Sudan did not materialize.