An Ethiopian woman who fled the ongoing fighting in Tigray region prepares a meal in Hamdait village on the Sudan-Ethiopia border in eastern Kassala state, Sudan. REUTERS\/El Tayeb Siddig (Story and photo courtesy of Thomson Reuters Foundation.)<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_blurb title=”Fr. Pedro and his Mission in Ethiopia” image=”https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-15-at-4.24.36-PM.png” alt=”Fr Pedro” _builder_version=”4.8.2″ _module_preset=”default” header_font=”|700|||||||” background_color=”rgba(224,153,0,0.41)” custom_padding=”10px|10px|10px|10px|false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]
Fr. Pedro Hernandez, a Comboni Missionary from Mexico, has been working in Awasa, Ethiopia, for 20 years. He sees hope on the horizon.<\/span><\/p>\n The Comboni Missionaries have worked in this region of southeast Ethiopia for 35 years, founding missions at Killenso, Soddu Abala, and Haroo Waato. Prior to their arrival, the Catholic faith was almost nonexistent. Now there are 16 new Christian communities, a new church, and a library.<\/span><\/p>\n Recent violence threatens the progress made under the new prime minister and the country is still beset by drought and inflation. \u201cWe must rebuild and strengthen a climate of democracy and peace,\u201d says Fr. Pedro, \u201cworking alongside and with people, so that they become more and more protagonist of their future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>[\/et_pb_blurb][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.8.2″ text_font=”||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”2em” header_2_font=”||||||||” text_font_size_tablet=”14px” text_font_size_phone=”” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet”] By: Emeline Wuilbercq When migrant worker Lula flew home to Ethiopia after eight months in Saudi detention, she thought her ordeal was over.<\/p>\n But instead of returning to her family in Tigray, she found herself stranded in the capital, unable to contact her parents and daughter as fighting has cut off the northern region and raised fears of a humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n Lula is one of dozens of migrants who returned from Saudi Arabia last week to find that internet and phone connections to Tigray have been suspended and roads and airports closed.<\/p>\n \u201cI have tried to contact my family but the phone is not working,\u201d 29-year-old Lula, who declined to publish her full name, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Addis Ababa. \u201cIt is concerning not to hear from them at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n Two weeks of escalating conflict between federal forces and rebellious local rulers has killed hundreds and pushed 30,000 refugees into Sudan, leading the UN to warn in November of a \u201cfullscale humanitarian crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n It has called into question whether Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Africa\u2019s youngest leader and last year\u2019s Nobel Peace Prize winner, can hold his fractured nation together ahead of national elections next year.<\/p>\n More than 14,000 Ethiopians have returned from Saudi Arabia since March, according to the UN migration agency, IOM, where many like Lula were detained in camps that the UN described as overcrowded and unsanitary.<\/p>\n Every year, it is estimated that tens of thousands of Ethiopians travel irregularly to the gulf in search of better paid work. Many end up exploited as maids or on building sites.<\/p>\n More than 80 out of about 260 migrants who flew home to Ethiopia after the conflict broke out had to stay in a hotel in Addis Ababa because they came from Tigray and had no relatives in the capital. This included about 20 minors.<\/p>\n Shimeles Belaso, a director at Ethiopia\u2019s ministry of peace said that the stranded returnees will be transported to their respective towns and villages when the situation calms. \u201cThere are now security issues … just letting them go there is troublesome and (they could) be troubled and endangered,\u201d he said. \u201cTherefore, the Ethiopian government is handling them, covering all the necessary costs for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Lula was relieved that she had a friend in Addis Ababa who was willing to take her in, providing some home comforts and a familiar face to help brush away her painful memories of prison in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n Her dream of working abroad fell flat this year when rebels in Yemen\u2014through which she and scores of other migrants were travelling to Saudi Arabia\u2014rounded them up, while shooting and calling them \u201ccoronavirus carriers\u201d and took them to the border.<\/p>\n Lula was one of thousands of migrants who were held in Saudi detention centers, described by Human Rights Watch as squalid and abusive, before being repatriated to Ethiopia. \u201cThere were illnesses, hunger, deaths,\u201d Lula recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is better to beg in your own country,\u201d said Lula, who has twice made the dangerous journey to Saudi Arabia, adding that she would not return there illegally.<\/p>\n Kassahun Habtamu, assistant professor at the School of Psychology of Addis Ababa University, said that the conflict and ensuing communications blackout put returnees at risk of developing mental health problems.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir migration experience is a very big burden by itself,\u201d said Kassahun, who has studied the mental health problems faced by Ethiopian returnees from the Middle East.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd this conflict now … they don\u2019t know what is happening to their family members, they can\u2019t even tell them that they are back. So this is a double burden, and it is very, very stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n For Lula, the only option now is to find work in Addis Ababa while waiting for the conflict to end.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m worried not to find a job, to have no money,\u201d she said, after days of fruitless searching in the capital. \u201cIf the roads were open and I could see my daughter, I would go today.\u201d<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Donations” _builder_version=”3.22″ background_color=”#151f33″ custom_padding=”0vw||0vw||true|” custom_width_px__hover=”1080px” custom_width_px__hover_enabled=”1080px” custom_width_percent__hover=”80%” custom_width_percent__hover_enabled=”80%” gutter_width__hover=”3″ gutter_width__hover_enabled=”3″ parallax_1__hover=”off” parallax_1__hover_enabled=”off” parallax_2__hover=”off” parallax_2__hover_enabled=”off” parallax_3__hover=”off” parallax_3__hover_enabled=”off” parallax_method_1__hover=”on” 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locked=”off”] An Ethiopian woman who fled the ongoing fighting in Tigray region prepares a meal in Hamdait village on the Sudan-Ethiopia border in eastern Kassala state, Sudan. REUTERS\/El Tayeb Siddig (Story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-4828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-uncategorized","tag-ethiopia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Screen-Shot-2020-12-16-at-11.27.21-AM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/em>This story first appeared in Comboni Missions Magazine winter 2021.<\/em><\/p>\nRead more news from the Comboni Missionaries<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#FFBA5A” divider_weight=”3px” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ max_width=”80px” height=”3px” locked=”off”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_button button_url=”https:\/\/combonimissionaries.org\/latest-news\/” button_text=”Latest News” button_alignment=”center” _builder_version=”4.8.2″ custom_button=”on” button_text_size=”16px” button_bg_color=”#55677f” button_border_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0)” button_border_radius=”0px” button_letter_spacing=”4px” button_font=”Source Sans Pro|700||on|||||” button_icon=”%%3%%” background_layout=”dark” custom_margin=”55px||21px|||” custom_padding=”12px|30px|12px|30px|true|true” locked=”off”][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"