Refugee numbers are on the rise in Ethiopia as violence heats up in neighboring Sudan's Blue Nile state, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Tuesday.
Registered refugees in two camps, Tongo and Sherkole, have increased by 29,494 between June 2011 and April 21, 2012. However, with refugee numbers on the rise, adjustments will have to be made in how Ethiopia is adapting to an increase in populous.
Programs known as "safety nets" have been utilized in Ethiopia by the World Bank to help offset the grim conditions citizens many may face.
"Safety nets — programs that invest in poor people and help them enhance their livelihoods and productivity by transferring resources to poor households — have been on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa," according to a news release by the World Bank.
The World Bank added, "These programs either transfer money directly to vulnerable households, or offer labor-intensive public works jobs such as building rural roads to adults who need temporary employment during the agricultural lean season."
However, with incoming refugees from Sudan, programs will have to adjust to the situation of not only feeding their own but also their Sudanese neighbors arriving fresh from border clashes.
With the average gross national income for Ethiopians already being thin, $390 and far below the "low income" and "Sub-Saharan Africa" averages according to World Bank data, Ethiopia's resources will be put to the test.
"Given the nature of Ethiopia's already broken system, I don't see how they could possibly accommodate incoming refugees. The majority of the Ethiopian population is already homeless, hungry and without clean water or access to medical care," Tamara McKim, the Project Coordinator for Project World Mission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, told RTTNews on Thursday. "The government is well aware of the desperation of its own people, much less those pouring in from neighboring countries."
"The only way I would foresee being able to accommodate these refugees is if a specific non-profit organization came in and set up some sort of program to facilitate the influx of Sudanese refugees," McKim said to RTTNews.
Other organizations such as the World Food Program have come to the rescue in South Sudan's refugee camp in Yida. While Yida only holds about 20,000 refugees currently, there are reportedly 114,000 Sudanese refugees in South Sudan, according to the U.N.
However, the World Food Program has already acknowledged the dire refugee situation in Ethiopia and has had an existing presence in the country for quite some time.
According to the WFP website, the WFP currently provides food assistance to almost 300,000 refugees in Ethiopia, including 50,000 from Sudan. Furthermore, the WFP did recognize the unstable situation in neighboring countries - Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea, and the number of growing refugees in Ethiopia on a daily basis.
Displaced civilians consist mostly of women and children as a result of fighting between Sudanese forces and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). A surge of refugee arrivals in Ethiopia started in the last week of March, the UNHCR branch office in Addis Ababa told the Sudan Tribune.
With increased numbers of women and children, not only is food an immediate concern but also safety and education. School enrollment was at 81.3% net for 2010 Ethiopia, based on recent numbers released from the World Bank.
"While there are a few government schools, free of charge, the majority of the time they were at max capacity. The majority of educational facilities charge a school fee in order to attend. While I saw thousands of children heading off to school every morning in hole-ridden, worn and tattered clothes, a great number of them were sponsored by various non-profit organizations that work in this area...and otherwise would never have been able to afford the fee to attend. Every single child you see among the streets shining shoes, playing, high on paint-thinner, was a child uneducated and unable to afford school," McKim told RTTNews.
Furthermore, the great numbers of incoming refugees raises the question of jobs. With 80-85 percent of Ethiopia's workforce in the agriculture sector, according to World Bank estimates, Ethiopians may find challenges in finding work with a sharp increase in population.
"Allotting resources to assist them would greatly help. However, it would appear to be a band-aid to a larger wound. Assistance in any form should be accompanied with education and opportunity. People want to work, they want the opportunity to earn a wage without taking handouts. There simply are very few jobs in Ethiopia, even for those who are educated at the collegiate level," McKim told RTTNews.
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