Appeal of the Team of the Voice of the Kunama People (VKP)
To the:-
Ethiopian Government
HRW London
ICRC-Kenya Nairobi
UNHCR-GENEVA,
UNHCR ARRA-Addis Abeba,
AI Amnesty International
EU
From our sources of information recently the VKP-team received very tragic news from Shimelba Refugees Camp in the Ethiopian State of Tigray province, that the leaders of Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Eritrean Kunama (DMLEK) have been abducting children as young as 9-10 years age from Kunama villages of Eritrea with the intention of feeling the group of its fleeing fighters. According to the sources, the organization has kidnapped children from Eritrean Kunama villages namely: Fode, Shambokko, Kona and Oganna in the last month of November, 2010, and kept them with its few fighters compelling for military recruitment. The children were mostly looking after goats when they were abducted and kept in the bushes and taken by night. There are also many fellow Kunama youth who fall in the hands of these criminal leaders and were forced to join DMLEK while trying to cross to Ethiopia for refuge.
On the other hand DMLEK leaders are accusing and terrorizing some groups of Kunama youth in Shimelba by interfering in their private lives. Just like the current regime in Eritrea DMLEK leaders have been accusing the new Kunama followers of Pentecostal Church of being preaching children and attracting to their Church which DMLEK believes it keeps the children from attending DMLEK political teachings it conducts in the refugee camp. In the last months of 2010 the DMLEK cadres confronted with these poor refugees and brought this issue to the camp leaders and were told to refrain from interfering in religious matters, but DMLEK still continues its allegations against the Kunama refugees. It also is also forcing the poor refugees to attend its political meeting otherwise they would not get the permission slips to go to the cities. There are endless means of threats that DMLEK Leader Adolay Kornelios Osman uses to subdue the Kunama refugee who are hopeless on DMLEK.
The other concern is about the DMLEK fighters who desert the organization. Many fighters escape DMLEK for many different reasons, mainly because they have understood that DMLEK's corrupted leaders are using the organization as their means of survival confiscating all the money that comes in the name of the organization to their private accounts leaving the fighters to starve and get exposed to many illnesses related to malnutrition and never get treatment. To keep the fighters, though the DMLEK leaders tell them that life in the refugee camp is worse than in DMLEK they still flee their organization and try to go to the refugee camp.
The fleeing fighters mostly go to Shimelba refugee camp before they are sent to Abbaguna to get registered. Some camp coordinators and administrators of Shimelba refugee camp have a good resonance in helping the refugees, mainly the ex-fighters of DMLEK in getting refugee status. In contrary, the Administration of refugees and Returnees Affairs (ARRA) of Addis-Ababa and Abbaguna are still cooperating with Adolay Kornelios Osman the criminal rebel leader to block their application for political asylum. ARRA-Abbaguna is naturally influenced by the Addis-Ababa based ARRA to reject applications of these refugees unless they bring DMLEK identification Cards. It is impossible for the fleeing Kunama youth to bring their DMLEK identification cards from DMLEK office, because most of them lose it while scapping or leave it in the organization. It is also totally unfair for the Abbaguna office to request that piece of document to bring it from their leaders who are hunting them like animals.
We, Kunama are always grateful to the Ethiopian Government and its people for the refuge they provide for our people. The Ethiopian government right from 2000, it accepted with its open arms more than 4000 Kunama refugees saving their lives from the present criminal Eritrean regime. We Kunama are thankful for humane hospitality we get from the Ethiopian people and the government, but we are not yet sure of our daily lives. Our biggest threat is the DMLEK leaders specially Kornelios Osman who has criminal mind killing many innocent Kunamas, kidnapping some even from the refugee camp in the province of Tigray.Kornelios Osman(Adolai) is still exercising its criminal activities in the refugee camp forcing the refugees to elect its cadres as camp leaders either to discourage resettlement or spoil the peace of the refugees so that the youth would join DMLEK or stop fleeing it. It should be born again in mind that for the Kunama people resettlement has been the last option. It was the very last choice take after losing hope from its political organization DMLEK when its leaders started to imprison and kill the most important people among the Kunama.
Up to now, many of those Kunama refugees who had either applied for or were wishing to apply to be resettled in third western countries, have been prevented and, at times, even threatened and terrorized by the leadership of the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of the Eritrean Kunama (DMLEK) and by the persons it has appointed and put in charge of those Kunama refugees in their refugee-camps.
There has been many appeals of the Team of the Voice of the Kunama People (VKP) to the national and international organs about the issue of Kunama refugees in Ethiopia. To make things worse, now DMLEK leaders violated another international law and started kidnapping many children from inside Eritrea to recruit as soldiers. This dangerous crime is on the top of what they have been committing among the Kunama people. By doing so it tells everyone that these criminal leaders are well prepared for long term plans of criminal acts by brainwashing these innocent children. We want also to tell the people of the world that when DMLEK leaders were killing surveyor Husein Yousuf, they ordered a teenager Kunama to moisten a rope with which he was hanged to death infront of this teenager in February 02.2003. After scaping from DMLEK this teenager is now resettled in the United States of America. We, Kunama people want to fight for our rights in a legitimate way, not by kidnapping innocent children and involve them in criminal acts.
The team running the www.baden-kunama.com, the Voice of the Kunama People (VKP) seriously condemns such dangerous activities and appeals again and again to the Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia; to the Governor of the Ethiopian State of Tigray; to the Eritrean opposition organization EDA, to the ICRC, to the EU, to the local UNHCR’s authorities in the Shimelba’s refugee-camps, to the Amnesty International and to all other International Human Rights Organizations, to investigate this case and help the innocent children who are crying and calling their mothers under this criminal leaders.
Best Regards
The Team of VKP (December 07.2010)
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