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HOPE ON THE HORIZON
All of them have a dream and a hope to go somewhere…
and to achieve this dream.
Most of them are young people, which is very sad.
Before, it was 30, 35-year-olds,
but now children are coming, from four to 17 years old.
This is a great sadness, an enormous plague for Eritrea…
DR. ALGANESH FESSAHA GANDHI NPO
…and for the others too, because it makes us all powerless.
We don't know what to do anymore.
Ethiopia has always been a welcoming land towards refugees.
It's the cradle of humanity
where they discovered the first human skeleton.
Today it's known as the land of Christianity in Africa.
MONSIGNOR MUSIE GHEBREGHIORGHIS EPARCH OF EMDIBIR
Deacon Phillip baptized the eunuch of the Queen of Ethiopia
in the year 37 A.D.
When peace is missing, people try to flee
to where they can find peace.
At this time, around…
700,000 refugees are in Ethiopia.
They come from Eritrea, from South Sudan,
from Somalia, from different nations surrounding Ethiopia,
and Ethiopia has always been a welcoming nation.
TO MAI AINI REFUGEE CAMP
This is Mai Aini's main entrance,
the second refugee camp, which has 11,500 refugees.
In this camp, we carried out many projects.
UNHCR gives 15 kg of wheat.
Sometimes it gives oil, salt and sugar, but that's rare.
To integrate, refugees create small jobs,
like opening a restaurant, a café.
All these 11,800 refugees are Eritrean.
They're all Eritrean, this is an Eritrean camp.
There are five Eritrean refugee camps in Ethiopia.
The first is Shimelba,
the second is Mai Aini, the third is Mai-tsabri,
the fourth is Hitsats and the fifth Endabaguna,
which serves as a sorting camp for children
and for those who arrive…
who are then allocated to the other camps.
They might stay five years, seven years.
It depends on the resettlement, relocation to a third country.
They are on a list, if it comes they'll go.
They left their family, their parents,
wife and children, husband and children.
They left so much, they left their history.
This is where UNHCR hangs
all the information on resettlement.
People come here to read,
and then they know whether they're called from UNHCR's office.
Out of these houses, we built 50 for vulnerable women.
When they arrived, they had been raped and tortured
and we created these houses for them.
This way up, there is an Orthodox church.
Then there's a Catholic church,
and then there's a mosque further down.
I lived in here for two, three years.
These are the rooms.
These beds are made of concrete and terracotta.
Hard, they're definitely good for your back!
There's a toilet that way.
This has been my shelter for…
three, four years I'd say.
This is Association Gandhi's headquarter in Mai Aini camp.
What is being unloaded now is food for children.
Here, we have more than 850 children from three to six years old.
We cook one meal a day for them.
We prepare them before school,
it's a pre-scholar nourishment.
Many children have their parents, others don't,
some are with their grandma, their uncles and so on.
They are minors, they are little, some of them unaccompanied.
We've been here for more than ten years, nearly 11.
AT THE ENDABAGUNA RECEPTION CENTRE
These are people who have just arrived.
They have nothing, they look scared, fearful…
because they have walked for about three days and a half
to get to the border and to be accepted.
The youngest child is seven months old.
The oldest one is four years old,
so from seven months old to four years old.
You can tell from their faces that they are tired, exhausted,
but you can also see a burst of hope
that someone might help them
and understand their suffering.
This one is 12 years old.
Eleven years old.
Fourteen years old.
They had to escape to evade doing military service.
They arrived on their own, without any parents.
They escaped.
He says that for most of them, their families don't know where they are.
He said that they saw him running to escape.
But they don't know where they are.
They are tired and exhausted,
because they've hardly had anything to eat or drink for two days.
He is six years old,
he also escaped on his own.
Nearly all of them escaped on their own.
He said that he escaped
and his parents, informed by the farmers who were there,
tried to run after him.
It took nearly a week before he,
alone, making slow progress, stopped at the frontier…
in order not to be found by these farmers
who would have sent him back or given him to the police,
and the police would have beaten him up.
They would have hurt him.
I asked him, "What will your family do now? Will they know where you are?"
And he says, "I'm sure the military and the farmers
will go and tell my relatives that I've reached the border."
They all say they want to study.
TO THE CAMP OF UNACCOMPANIED REFUGEE MINORS
In these five camps we have…
In some 7,000 and in others 13,000 or 12,000 people.
The sad thing I have noticed lately in these…
I've been working here in Ethiopia for nearly 17 years,
for refugee camps and refugees.
But I had never seen children arriving.
For the past three years, I've been seeing children
from four to 17 years old.
There has been a continuous flow of youngsters.
And I ask myself, "Who has remained in Eritrea?"
The other day I met a four-year-old girl,
her name was Dahab.
And she told me…
She pulled my dress and said,
"Have you seen my mother?"
I told her, "No, I haven't seen her."
She said, "Take a picture of me. Send it to my mum.
So that she'll see my picture and will come look after me.
Because without her I can't sleep."
A four-year-old girl.
I asked her, "How did you come here?"
She said, "It's me, my brother and my other brother. We were five.
My mother told us three to go ahead to cross the border.
She remained behind with the others.
We crossed, but she was arrested."
This girl was looking for her mother.
She was saying, "Please, find my mother,
because I can't sleep." I asked her, "Where would you like to go?"
"I'd like to go to Europe." "Why Europe?"
"Because I want to study."
Four years old.
So if a four year-old comes and tells me this…
my desolation, sadness and anger increase.
He is going to show me his room.
One, two, three…
four? Four of them sleep here.
Six. Seven, eight!
Ah! He learned numbers in Italian in Asmara, in Eritrea.
Hey!
I was born in Eritrea.
I am Eritrean. I was born in Asmara, in a big family.
With a loving father and an even more loving mother
who taught me the values of life,
and I thank them both.
They opened for me the road of love, compassion, giving…
and most of all of love.
I studied there, in Asmara, I went to the pre-university college,
then I came to Italy and went to the Cattolica.
I completed my studies and then I went to India
to study some ayurvedic medicine.
I worked for a big multinational.
At one point, during a journey to Sudan,
I met five children.
I'm telling you how I started this activity.
These five children were five, six, seven, 13 years old.
I saw them sitting on the ground,
and I asked them, "What are you doing?"
They didn't answer me, kept their head down,
and ignored me, they had entered a total mutism.
So I left. I came back the day after…
and I saw these five children again.
I stopped once again and asked, "Can I help you?"
The oldest, who was about 13, got up and said,
"No, we don't need any help."
And I asked him, "But how do you live?
Do you have a family? How did you come here?"
"No, we escaped from Eritrea because our houses were bombed."
I asked him, "Are you siblings?"
"No, we're not siblings, we met here."
"So how do you live?"
And the oldest, who was speaking on behalf of the others,
said, "Don't worry, because I'm going to beg
in order for them to study."
"How can you do that?"
"I can do it. Because I am their father, and their mother.
Because we have no one left."
That was the spur for me.
"You have nearly everything, and you're complaining?"
And you see the infinite generosity
of a 13-year-old kid who is teaching you
the values your parents had taught you,
that you maybe had forgotten for a while. "Wake up!"
From then, I started to take care of the children,
we built a house for them,
with the support of the Capuchin Friars.
We made them study,
they all still live together.
They finished the studies they wanted.
One is a dentist, the other is a carpenter,
the other an electrician.
They formed this big nuclear family
and they help other children like them.
From there, I started another path:
following my people, the Eritreans,
anywhere they are.
The Sinai desert, in Egypt,
in Sudan, in Tunisia,
or in Libya.
My first experience in this field, in the Sinai, was when…
they told me there were many Eritreans,
and many Africans in general,
who were in the state prisons.
They were in Arish, Rafah, Azouli.
In all these areas there were 15 prisons
with more or less 300, 400 Africans.
So I asked if I could go see them, because I wanted to help them.
The police allowed me to enter the prisons,
so I went in with a nun, Sister Muna, who helped me.
We brought food, clothes, medicines.
Then we said, "We need to do something to take them out."
We asked the Ethiopian government for permission,
who generously granted us
to bring them to Ethiopia as refugees.
They still grant permits
to come… to Ethiopia,
and then they are sent to refugee camps
so that they are out of prisons,
away from disease and suffering.
We freed in total nearly 8,500 people.
Various donors chipped in, because flights are expensive.
We are Eritreans, we are all Eritreans.
All of us, men and women.
The reason for the frustration which brought us…
to cross the country, is the lack of rules and laws.
People in our country have no power.
That is why many abandon their homes and flee the country.
I'm really happy you welcomed me this way,
and I'm going to tell you calmly all I have to say.
Our people know the rules and the laws of our country.
But if we say inconvenient things, we are eradicated like bad grass
and thrown into prisons, where many people have ended up.
Youngsters have been brought to a place called Sawa,
forced and beaten up.
They took them away without informing their parents.
This is what happened
and this is why we were eradicated and forced to escape.
We can't fight against this situation,
because it can't be resolved or changed with some kind of fight.
People preferred to leave the country.
Those people you've seen, they've never stolen nor committed any crime.
But they had to flee their country for this reason.
When we come to neighbouring countries, like Somalia and Ethiopia,
they often ask us why we haven't fought until now.
But if we fought, there would be a big scattering of blood.
What you get from a bloodshed is always a return to other bloodsheds.
The elders are the ones who escape,
because they aren't forced to join the military,
they aren't forced to do anything else.
But if they have children who have escaped
to Sudan or Israel,
the government tells them, "You either bring your children back,
or you pay 50,000 nakfa."
They can live for two years on 50,000 nakfa.
So where would they get it from?
And they escape.
They leave everything and escape.
There are many elders who tell me,
"Alga, take us back to our country. We want to die at home."
This is how I got here.
I first lived in the Barka region,
in a place called Enjehai.
It's a new place and I moved there to be a farmer.
While I was there, my children escaped from the country.
Then the government asked me to pay 200,000 nakfa
because my children had escaped.
When it happened, I asked for some time to find the money.
Then I escaped by plane, because I had a passport.
Did you get to Ethiopia?
I went to Kenya, then from Kenya I got to Ethiopia.
This is the reason why I'm far away from my children,
who live here and there.
Because of all of that, I live here. I'm suffering,
I've got diabetes and high blood pressure.
AT SHIMELBA REFUGEE CAMP, WITH 60% OF KUNAMA
The Kunama, they came from a Nilotic river.
For more than 150 years…
they lived around a river called "Tsona"…
EZEKIEL CHANNE, ANTHROPOLOGIST KUNAMA
…or Gash river.
They lived in that area,
and their only occupation was cultivating, farming a land.
In that moment…
they didn't have any governmental rules.
They didn't have any administration, they didn't have any organization.
They lived simply doing their duty.
In that stage, Kunama, they had their great culture
of traditions, and they had their religion.
The god of our religion is called Dungun.
I was born in 1990
in the south region of Mekel.
I studied in the Gash-Barka region.
Its capital is Barentu.
And I completed my education in the military service.
Then I enrolled in college and I studied anthropology.
So, I graduated after two years.
And then they sent me to my region.
At the time, I saw a lot of discriminations…
towards myself and towards my community.
We are suffering, we have a lot of problems
because of those discriminations.
And at last, I decided to flee to the neighbouring country
which is called Ethiopia.
When I fled from Eritrea,
first I found somebody who knew the way
to the border.
He agreed to take me and I agreed with him at the time.
And he arrived in Barentu
and he took me from Barentu
to the north, in an area called Shambuko.
So, at the time, it was midnight,
11 p.m.
We decided to go to the border area.
We were close to the border,
it was 12 a.m.
Early in the morning, I escaped from the border to the Ethiopian army.
And the Ethiopian army took me to UNHCR,
in Endebaguna.
And then from Endebaguna, they took me to my community area
which is called Shimelba.
They could ask you a question, and you only had one chance.
If Eritrean soldiers found you, they would ask you one question.
"Do you want to die or do you want to live?"
At that time… I don't think so, it's very tough.
I was very afraid for my life in that moment.
And for my family as well.
Even for my family.
If they found me when I crossed the border…
my family would have been in danger.
Because of the political issue.
Because of the discrimination against our people.
My dream, or my hope,
most of the time, is not only for my personal issue.
I want a better life for my whole community.
In 615, Mohammed was being persecuted by his people.
And when he was being persecuted by his people,
some say he suggested to his followers to go to Ethiopia…
were they would have been welcomed by a just king.
And so Mohammed's followers came to Ethiopia, in 615,
and they were welcomed by the emperor, by the king at the time.
Their persecutors came to Ethiopia to…
to continue the persecution,
but the king defended them because…
when he had asked the followers,
"Why are you being persecuted?"
They said, "We worshipped different gods,
we were polytheists,
Mohammed came and told us there is only one God.
He taught us how to pray, how to fast,
prostrations, how to do pilgrimages."
And the Christian king was amazed.
"We pray as well, we fast as well.
You have a good religion and I must defend you."
And so he did, and they are still here.
Nowadays,
the refugees are not only Muslims.
I want to distinguish between the Sinai of the traffickers
and the one of the state prisons.
We have never had any problems with state prisons.
By compromising with the police and with the help of the immigration office,
and also with the help of the Ethiopian government
who accepts the refugees,
we managed to bring 8,500, 8,700 people here.
Another issue, which is the most dramatic and sad,
is human trafficking.
People were sold from Sudan, from Rashaidas.
From there, they were bought from an Egyptian tribe
which trafficked human beings and organs.
They were sold in five stages.
The first stage, they paid a certain amount.
The second, it increased. The third, it increased and so on.
Until, after the last stage,
they asked for a ransom of $60,000.
Throughout this path of five sales,
there was suffering and torture.
They asked boys or girls,
"Do you have family abroad?"
And then said, "If you don't pay,
we'll take a kidney or your cornea from you.
We'll kill you."
They got scared and said,
"Yes, I have a relative, my parents are poor in Eritrea."
So they asked them for their phone numbers.
They made them ring their families with a satellite phone,
and while they were talking with their families, they tortured them.
They poured down burned plastic bags on them.
They screamed, and the family on the other side
heard them screaming and saying, "They're killing me, help me,
I don't know what to do, they're asking for a ransom of $10,000."
The family on the other side shouted, some mothers fainted,
because they couldn't stand to hear their children screaming.
They told them, "Give us time."
A week, ten, 15 days.
The traffickers accepted.
Bear in mind that the people with them
were tied with chains on their feet and hands.
While they were waiting for the ransom to be paid,
the families went around begging for money,
asking relatives to help them.
There's no family in Eritrea who hasn't been through this suffering.
There's no family in Eritrea who hasn't seen their child
dying in the Mediterranean, or in the Sahara desert,
or in the Sinai desert.
There were also girls who were kidnapped from Eritrea,
from the hinterland of Asmara,
and they were sold on until they arrived in Egypt
through these traffickers.
Sixteen, 17-year-old girls
who were raped by the guardians, five, six times a day.
Imagine a 16, 17-year-old girl who is being raped…
without respite, every day.
When we freed them, we met girls
who were completely destroyed,
physically and mentally as well.
The story of Smret,
they kidnapped her when she was 14 with a friend of hers…
and…
they brought her to the Sinai.
She was sold on from one trafficker to another.
They asked for 40,000 from the family, who didn't have it.
So they said, "Don't worry, let them pay whatever they can,
otherwise we are going to kill you.
We do our job and get our money
because we bought you,
so the money has to get here."
She didn't understand.
Every time they touched her, she fainted.
And yet, although she had fainted, they raped her.
We freed this girl and brought her to Ethiopia.
Every time she…
She gets a panic attack every time someone gets close to her.
She doesn't understand… "What does this person want?"
Boys too.
Boys, in addition to being beaten up,
electrical shocks.
They poured water on them and they put electrodes on them
and started the shock.
And they did this until they fainted.
That's how they were tortured.
So there were…
We freed 750 of them,
but apart from these 750, how many died?
How many bodies did we find in the desert?
How many dumped bodies did we find in the desert
that we took and brought to the mortuary?
So many boys, so many girls.
Sometimes I ask myself,
"This Sinai was the land where all the prophets passed through,
but in the end it was also the land in which…
nearly 10,000 Africans died.
Torture, organ theft,
and no one has asked where they are, or what happened to them.
Amidst the suffering, there are people who are generous and help.
For this, I have to thank Sham Ahmed's family.
He is an imam, who's still living, a young man.
He risked his life, just like I risked mine,
to free these prisoners, who he didn't know.
I was beaten up in Libya because we were going to free some people,
and also in the Sinai.
But these are physical sufferings.
The other ones…
The other beating I have received goes much deeper.
When I was picking up the bodies of…
boys and girls in the desert,
and they had no face,
because they had been burned to make them unrecognizable.
That was an incredible tragedy. Unbearable.
I had the same horrible feeling in Lampedusa
when I saw all these bodies, all these graves,
these children.
When they took them they looked like angels,
like they hadn't died.
Their parents had died…
maybe eaten by the fish.
All this human horror,
all this wickedness…
I ask myself,
"Have we reached the pinnacle?"
I'd like to be a voice for those that don't have a voice.
I don't know, I'm trying to.
TO ENDABAGUNA RECEPTION CENTRE
She is not feeling well.
She is not feeling…
She got scared, she said, "All these people…
Who is with their families at home? Are they alone?"
Despite seeing so many arriving,
and leaving for Europe,
it is…
It is too much, seeing all these sad eyes
that see hope on the horizon.
Hope to be able to study in the future,
to become somebody.
And also hope to get back to their country, to try to help.
Amidst so much suffering…
they helped me to see with their eyes, to see hope.
Hope for a better future.