The Prisoners Exchange Between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the Case of Irob Captives

Irob Community In North America
P.O.Box 5533
Arlingon, VA 22205

The Eritrean invasion of 1998 is still fresh in the memory of the people who inhabit the border areas. The devastating army not only killed and brutalized said people, but also stole and vandalized their property. They were robbed of their cattle and other domestic animals and their family members were abducted

The Irob minority group is one of the most abused victims of the horrific invasion. Each family in the region has lost a relative in the war or to the cruel abductions. The men and women who were snatched from their families and homes are still in the hands of the abductor.

Nonetheless, last week, the Eritrean regime stated that it returned to Ethiopia the last of the prisoners. However, everyone familiar with the case knows that Eritrea is still holding hundreds of prisoners of war and innocent captives of the appalling occupation. The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Eritrea had not released all the Ethiopian soldiers captured during the 1998-2000-border war. What about the civilians?

Neither the Ethiopian government, nor the ICRC and other international organizations is addressing the issue of the women and men, including clerics, abducted from the Irob and other affected areas. The Irob clergy and other groups notified the world community about the kidnapping of the innocent civilians from day one of their abduction. However, nobody has openly demonstrated concern for them.

The whereabouts of the numerous farmers and other civilians abducted from those areas (hundreds from the Irob region alone) is still unknown.
We demand that the Ethiopian government appropriately and forcefully voice such concerns until every Ethiopian’s freedom is secured (including the freedom of the abducted civilians who are equally as Ethiopians as the soldiers).
We appeal to the Ethiopian public to put pressure on the authorities not to allow innocent Ethiopian citizens to languish in Eritrean concentration camps.

We appeal to the International Committee of the Red Cross, to Amnesty International, and other humanitarian organizations to investigate the whereabouts and conditions of the Irob and other Ethiopian hostages languishing in the concentration camps and slave labor camps in Eritrea. We also appeal to the government of the United States and other world powers to pressurize the Eritrean government regarding the Ethiopian civilian detainees and prisoners of war still confined in Eritrea.

The following is a partial list of civilians abducted from the Irob region whose whereabouts remain unknown:

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