Saturday, June 18, 2011

The difficult situation of Eritrean refugees in Egypt

“They are in great danger from their government, which is one of the most severe persecutors of Christians in the world, and if they flee in the hope of a better life elsewhere, they face imprisonment, kidnap, torture, rape, beatings and even death,” said Patrick Sookhdeo, the international director of the Barnabas Fund, which provides aid to persecuted Christians. In addition, some refugees have reportedly had their organs harvested.

2 comments:

Ciccio said...

You most likely do not know it, but once upon a time yemen and parts of Saudi Arabia were part of the - even 1500 years ago - Christian empire of Ethiopia. Since the time of big Mo there has been a relentless war upon them,
the entire coastal regions and the fringes of the country bordering Muslim states are all slowly turning Islamic. Eritrea is one part of that once Christian empire and those refugees in Egypt are merely transiting hoping to go to Europe or Israel. If it is just safety they are looking for, they just have to step across the border into Ethiopia but Ethiopia is poor and it is not so much Islam as poverty they are fleeing. All refugees dress their plaint in the worn out rags of freedom and persecution, it has worn far to thin to have any more credence. The last thirty years that the Ethiopians have been crying starvation and poverty, their population has gone from 20 to 50 million, the biggest joke of all is that the UN WFP has spent some $40 million last year buying food for the starving Ethiopians from none other but the Ethiopians who were not starving but getting very prosperous by selling food to the UN.

Claudia said...

Eritrea (the country these refugees are mainly coming from) is not an Islamic state, but it's an incredible repressive regime if you don't belong to any of the "official denominations" ( Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church, Sunni Islam, Catholicism, and the Evangelical Lutheran church) and the country's Human Rights' record is very poor.

the biggest joke of all is that the UN WFP has spent some $40 million last year buying food for the starving Ethiopians from none other but the Ethiopians who were not starving but getting very prosperous by selling food to the UN.

Something that is possible b/c there is nearly no control on the things international organizations spend their money on.

A very interesting (though sad and very enraging) fact I didn't know about.