SIT-IN davanti all'Ambasciata d'Egitto - Protesta contro le deportazioni di Eritrei dall'Egitto

Venerdì, 20 giugno 2008 - ore 9.00 SIT-IN davanti all'Ambasciata d'Egitto - Protesta contro le deportazioni di Eritrei dall'Egitto

Le Comunità di rifugiati e immigrati Eritrei chiedono la collaborazione di tutti per il sit-in alle ore 09.00 davanti l'Ambasciata d'Egitto Via Salaria 267 - "Villa Savoia" 00199 - ROMA

Perché in questi giorni il governo egiziano ha deportato circa 400 eritrei richiedenti asilo e rifugiati verso l' Eritrea. Questo fatto grave che ha messo in pericolo la vita di centinaia di cittadini eritrei, non può passare sotto silenzio. La politica del governo egiziano è anche conseguenza della politica dell'Europa sulla immigrazione. Paesi come l'Egitto sono stati delegati allo scopo di bloccare l'immigrazione "Clandestina" in nome della sicurezza europea senza minimamente considerare il rispetto dei diritti umani. In questo modo vengono condannati centinaia di profughi e rifugiati alla tortura, al carcere, ai lavori forzati, fino alla pena di Morte! Quindi vi chiediamo di divulgare la notizia e speriamo in una grande partecipazione La giornata che abbiamo scelto è il 20 giugno giornata mondiale dei rifugiati Come ragiungere l'Ambasciata Egiziana: Dalla Stazione Termini Bus Prendere la linea 86 (MARMORALE) per 10 fermate.  Scendere alla fermata SEBINO, A piedi per 450 metri.

L'Egitto continua il rimpatri forzato degli eritrei, ora sono più di 800

L'Egitto continua il rimpatri forzato degli eritrei
Con il rimpatrio di altri 120 profughi effettuato la notte scorsa, sale a più di 800 il numero di profughi eritrei rimpatriati forzatamente dall'Egitto dall'11 di giugno ad oggi.
Amnesty e la comunità internazionale protestano, ma l'Egitto non si ferma.
In patria li aspettano torture e carcere.
Cosa succederà in Europa ed in Italia dopo la approvazione sulla direttiva di contrasto alla immigrazione?


Egypt deports more Eritreans despite UN objections
Wed 18 Jun 2008, 14:38 GMT

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt is continuing large-scale secret deportations of Eritrean asylum seekers despite objections by the U.N. refugee agency, which fears for their safety, Egyptian security sources said on Wednesday. They said a number of Eritreans were taken to Cairo airport in interior ministry vehicles on Tuesday night and put aboard special flights to Eritrea, but could give no further details.

The ongoing deportations are the largest forced returns of asylum seekers from Egypt in decades, and could mark a shift in Egypt's attitude toward tens of thousands of largely African migrants in its territory, activists say. Amnesty International, which says returned Eritreans are at serious risk of torture, said it feared up to 120 asylum seekers had been flown home overnight from Cairo, adding to about 690 other Eritreans who Amnesty says were deported since June 11.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, which has been unable to confirm any forced returns, said it was concerned about possible deportations of some of the roughly 1,600 Eritreans who were reported to be in detention in Egypt. "Basically, we have received similar reports from different sources that the deportations were still taking place," UNHCR spokeswoman Abeer Etefa said. The latest deportations would leave nearly 800 Eritreans remaining in Egyptian jails, and Amnesty said the remainder were also at risk of imminent deportation.

An Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment, but the ministry has said Egypt fulfils its international obligations toward refugees. Egyptian security sources told Reuters last week that deportations have occurred and that more were planned. Egypt, facing a surge of Eritrean arrivals in recent months, is under pressure to staunch the flow of African migrants into Israel over its sensitive Sinai desert border, Amnesty says. Police have shot dead 13 migrants at the border this year. Security sources said Egypt suspected the Eritrean detainees planned to smuggle themselves to the Jewish state. Facing rising international pressure over the deportations, Egypt agreed on Sunday to give UNHCR access to the remaining detained Eritreans for the first time since February.

UNHCR said it had been able to visit only about 140 Eritrean asylum seekers and want the deportations to end. "We are concerned because there are serious human rights violations in Eritrea and ... when people are forcibly returned they face detention for long, long periods of time. Months if not years. And they face torture," Etefa said.

Eritreans arriving in Egypt in recent months include Pentecostal Christians fleeing religious persecution and others trying to avoid military conscription, activists say. UNHCR said some Eritreans appeared to have been drawn to Egypt in hope of reaching Israel, but also cited a deteriorating human rights situation in Eritrea. Activists say others had spent time in neighbouring Sudan but no longer felt safe there.

Ethiopia, Eritrea risk new border war - report

campanelli di allarme
i due eserciti sono vicini, la distanza che li divide è minore della larghezza di un campo di calcio
un minimo tafferuglio può degenerare in guerra
a chi conviene questa situazione?
secondo ICG (gruupo di crisi internazonale) ai due dittatori che così mantengono il potere nei loro paesi

NAIROBI, June 17 (Reuters) - The armies of feuding Horn of Africa neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea are "less than a football pitch" apart, risking a catastrophic new war on their border, a think-tank warned on Tuesday. The latest in a string of recent international warnings over tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea -- who fought a 1998-2000 war that killed at least 70,000 people -- came from the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).

"Neither regime wants war at present. Both prefer to keep tensions simmering, giving them an excuse to maintain authoritarian rule," ICG senior Africa adviser Andebrhan Giorgis said in a report titled "Averting New War."

"But a minor border incident or miscalculation could produce a disastrous return to conflict," the report added. "The troops face each other often at less than a football pitch's distance."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also warned in April that the withdrawal of most of the world body's 1,700 peacekeepers on the border, following a fuel cutoff by Asmara, risked new hostilities on the 1,000-km (620 mile) frontier.

Asmara says a November 2007 "virtual demarcation" of the border by a now-defunct independent boundary commission has ended the issue, and Ethiopia must pull its troops back from areas designated to Eritrea.

Ethiopia says Eritrea is illegally massing troops on the border in a supposedly demilitarised zone, and it wants to discuss the border demarcation further.

"The departure of the Boundary Commission and the U.N. peacekeepers has made this conflict much more dangerous, removing the means both for dialogue between the parties and for stopping small problems from escalating," ICG's Giorgis said.

Some regional diplomats, however, believe that both sides may be restrained by the prospect of world condemnation, their already stretched economies, and the past cost to both nations in terms of human lives and finances.

ICG called on Ethiopia to withdraw soldiers from territory awarded to Eritrea by the boundary commission, on Eritrea to leave the Temporary Security Zone, and on the international community to provide "carrots and sticks" for that.

Both Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki use the border as an excuse to enhance their power and stifle democracy, the report said.

"The stalemate on the border feeds and, in turn, is fed by growing authoritarianism in both states. The ruling regimes rely on military power and restrictions on civil liberties to retain their dominant positions."

ICG said border tensions were "as high as they have ever been" since the war, with "constant shooting incidents and other tense episodes."

EMERGENZA ALIMENTARE: "SVEGLIARSI PRIMA CHE..." (Da 'Combonifem' - MISNA)

EMERGENZA ALIMENTARE: "SVEGLIARSI PRIMA CHE..." (Da 'Combonifem')

L' emergenza "fame nel mondo" è riapparsa da alcune settimane a grandi titoli sul palcoscenico mediatico occidentale. Le maggiori istituzioni internazionali – Banca Mondiale, Fondo Monetario Internazionale, Fao, eccetera – hanno dato l'allarme e in diversi modi ricordato ai responsabili politici ed economici delle nazioni che i paradossali livelli di povertà che ancora affliggono tante popolazioni in ogni angolo della Terra sono ben lungi dall'essere dimezzati per l'anno 2015, come la benaugurante campagna degli Obiettivi di Sviluppo per il Millennio ci aveva inizialmente fatto sperare. Dall'Egitto alle Filippine, in Camerun e in Madagascar, nella città di Port-au-Prince (Haiti) e nelle periferie di Nuova Delhi (India)… si sono moltiplicate le manifestazioni popolari, da alcuni definite come vere "rivolte del pane", a causa del continuo aumento del costo della vita e in particolare del prezzo dei prodotti alimentari (riso, mais, latte, grano, soia…) che per milioni di persone sono alimenti base e che assorbono circa i tre quarti del loro già precario reddito. A questi "lontani" si aggiungono le migliaia di persone che anche in Italia si ritrovano a fare i conti con un disagio economico sempre più preoccupante. Chi non si intristisce nel sentire che anziani pensionati, lavoratori per una vita, si ritrovano ad inventarsi ladruncoli di supermercato per sbarcare la giornata? Le cause di questa tragedia annunciata sono molteplici. Si tratta soprattutto del rincaro del gasolio – molto usato in agricoltura – e dei fertilizzanti, delle sementi, dei pesticidi; una imputata speciale è la produzione di agrocarburanti, realizzata grazie a cereali, canna da zucchero e piante oleaginose come alternativa all'oro nero; il riscaldamento climatico, l'eccessivo utilizzo delle risorse idriche a scopo industriale, l'aumentato tenore di vita, la crescita demografica e le problematiche relative alla vita urbana…Ciascuna di queste cause ha le sue specifiche, inevitabili conseguenze. La più grave di tutte è determinata dalla diminuzione delle terre destinate all'agricoltura di sostentamento, dalla diminuzione della massa di persone che potevano contare sull'agricoltura di sussistenza (orti famigliari o piccoli progetti estranei ai circuiti mercantili) e dall'aumento delle percentuali di popolazioni inurbate, che possono procurarsi cibo solo in cambio di denaro. Tra le cause più nascoste, ma di non minore impatto, vi sono il libero mercato sostenuto dai paesi più industrializzati, la politica agricola (europea e americana) con i suoi eccessivi sussidi ai propri agricoltori, la «stantia routine degli aiuti allo sviluppo», la «finanziarizzazione» dei prodotti alimentari; l'inflazione galoppante e il debito estero che stringono come in una morsa i paesi impoveriti dal modello di sviluppo imposto, lo «scandalo dell'egoismo dei ricchi» e, non meno grave, il «marasma etico» riscontrabile un po' ovunque. Quali le proposte avanzate dagli esperti per uscire da un tale labirinto? Indire una moratoria di 5 anni sulla produzione di biocarburanti; erogare subito 500 milioni di dollari a favore dei paesi più colpiti dalla carestia; investire meglio sulle capacità di processare e conservare il cibo nei posti dove le infrastrutture sociali sono più deboli; bloccare temporaneamente l'esportazione dei cereali dai paesi produttori del Sud del mondo a quelli consumatori, incentivare la rinascita delle coltivazioni locali, cambiare politica perché «i rimedi adottati sono stati peggiori del male»… Non ho sufficiente competenza per suggerire indicazioni particolari al riguardo, ma ho visto alcune persone morirmi di fame e di stenti tra le braccia, e, a distanza di anni, il solo ricordo mi angustia. Un'emozione, certamente, non cambia le cose in meglio per nessuno. Le masse che continueranno a manifestare sulle piazze di molti paesi ci devono scuotere dal torpore che da troppo tempo si è impadronito di noi, e che è dettato da quel senso di irresponsabilità inconscia che ci fa sentire al sicuro perché "tanto non tocca a me" – la recente campagna elettorale è stata maestra al riguardo. Nell'enciclica Populorum progressio del 1967 Paolo VI scrisse che «la collera dei poveri» potrebbe avere «conseguenze imprevedibili». Sono passati 40 anni di "deserto", da allora, per gli impoveriti del mondo. Quanto tempo saranno ancora disposti ad aspettare? (Suor Maria Teresa Ratti, direttrice di 'Combonifem magazine')

Nine dead in escalating Djibouti-Eritrea clash

DJIBOUTI, June 12 (Reuters) - Border clashes between Eritrea and Djibouti have killed 9 Djiboutian soldiers and wounded 60 others in three days of fighting between the Horn of Africa nations, a defence official said on Thursday.

In the first fighting since the mid-1990s between two of Africa's smallest states, Eritrean and Djiboutian troops have exchanged fire along a part of their shared border overlooking strategic shipping lanes in the Red Sea.

"The fighting is still ongoing. The dead and injured are more today, up to 9 dead and 60 wounded," said a Djiboutian military official, on condition of anonymity.

Djiboutian state media said the Red Sea state had captured 100 Eritrean prisoners.

There was, however, no independent verification of events from the remote border area that has long been a source of tension between the two countries.

Without confirming or denying the clashes, Eritrea has dismissed Djibouti's versions as "concocted animosity."

The Foreign Ministry said it would not "get involved in an invitation of squabbles and acts of hostility."

And there was no word on any Eritrean casualties.

The clashes erupted on Tuesday after a nearly two-month face off along their frontier. Djibouti accuses Asmara of entering its territory to build defences -- a claim Eritrea denies.

"It's a fabrication...We decline the invitation to go into another crisis in the region," Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki told Reuters last month.

Djibouti's smaller army of 11,000 troops has begun to call up demobilised soldiers and retired policemen. Eritrea has 200,000 soldiers, but many are on its border with Ethiopia.

Addis Ababa and Asmara fought a 1998-2000 over their frontier, and tensions between the two nations remain high.

The fighting along the Djibouti-Eritrea border broke out in the Mount Gabla area, also known as Ras Doumeira, which straddles the Bab al-Mandib straits.

Djibouti is home to a U.S. and a French military base.

Paris signed a mutual defence treaty with Djibouti after that nation's independence in 1977.

It is also an important route for landlocked Ethiopia, which has vowed to protect its access to Djibouti.

The United States and Ethiopia, Washington's main ally in the region, blamed Eritrea for the clashes.

"These hostilities represent an additional threat to peace and security in the already volatile Horn of Africa," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said on Wednesday.

Djibouti says the fighting began after Eritrean soldiers fired on some deserters, prompting Djibouti to return fire.

A second outbreak followed when Eritrean troops asked for their deserters back, Djibouti said.

Two dead in Djibouti-Eritrea border clash-witness

Wed 11 Jun 2008, 9:52 GMT

DJIBOUTI (Reuters) - Two Djiboutian soldiers were killed and 21 wounded when troops clashed with Eritrean forces along their border overlooking strategic Red Sea shipping lanes, Djibouti said on Wednesday.

The first fighting since 1996 between Eritrea and Djibouti broke out on Tuesday after a nearly two-month standoff. Djibouti hosts French and U.S. military bases and is the main route to the sea for Eritrea's arch-foe Ethiopia.

Djibouti said the clash began after Eritrean soldiers deserted and the Eritreans fired on them, prompting return fire. A second outbreak came when Eritrean soldiers later demanded their deserters back.

Eritrean officials declined to comment and there was no independent confirmation.

Fighting continued on Wednesday in the Mount Gabla area of northern Djibouti, Djibouti's Defence Ministry said.

Also known as Ras Doumeira, it overlooks the strategic Bab al-Mandib straits, which are a major shipping route to and from Europe and the Middle East.

A Reuters witness at a French hospital in Djibouti said helicopters had ferried in dead and wounded soldiers.

In mid-April, Djibouti accused Eritrea of digging trenches and building fortifications on the Djiboutian side of the frontier. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki told Reuters in a recent interview that was a "fabrication."

MILITARISED

The Djiboutian army says nearly 75 percent of its 11,000 troops are now stationed along its boundary with Eritrea, which is one of Africa's most militarised states and has more than 200,000 soldiers as part of a mandatory conscription programme.

Djibouti hosts two foreign military bases, including one of France's biggest overseas contingents and a U.S. counter-terrorism task force of about 2,000 soldiers -- many of them elite special forces.

It is also a vital route for landlocked Ethiopia, which has vowed to protect its shipping access in Djibouti if necessary.

Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a border war in 1998-2000 that killed 70,000 people, and lingering enmity has fuelled conflict in neighbouring Somalia and in Ethiopia's Ogaden region.

Former colonial power France signed a mutual defence pact with Djibouti after the Horn of Africa nation's independence in 1977.

Djibouti has turned itself into a regional shipping hub after massive investment from Dubai.

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council in early May, Djibouti's foreign minister said he suspected a "sinister" move by Eritrea to disrupt shipping lines along the Red Sea.

This weekend, an African Union fact-finding mission was in Djibouti to investigate the issue. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ ) (Additional reporting by Jack Kimball in Asmara; Editing by Bryson Hull and Matthew Tostevin)

Assurdo!!!!

QUESTO PARLA COME SE NULLA FOSSE!!!! IL SUO PAESE E' IN TESTA FRA I PAESI A RISCHIO CON IL 100% DI IMPORTAZIONE DI PETROLIO L'88% DI IMPORTAZIONE DI GRANO IL 75% (3 SU 4) DI CITTADINI SOTTONUTRITI E LUI CHE LI HA AFFAMATI CHE STA PORTANDO IL PAESE ALLA ROVINA CHE STA UCCIDENDO LA SPERANZA FA FINTA DI NIENTE E LO LASCIANO PURE PARLARE..... President Isaias Afwerki's speech to the FAO Conference By Jun 3, 2008, 14:39 Mr. Chairman, Excellencies Heads of State and Government, Ladies and Gentlemen Allow me to express the gratitude of my delegation to FAO, and the Italian Government, for hosting this Summit and for the warm hospitality that has been accorded to us during our stay in this historic city. The gravity of the global food crisis on the offing is too obvious to merit emphasis. And that is why it has augmented, more than ever before, the imperative and urgency of an effective and collective global response. This is rightly so. Because, those who will be affected most by the current food crisis are those who have already been deprived, and this is especially true in Africa, of other necessities of life. To leave them to mend for themselves will be morally reprehensible and politically imprudent. In the event, the timing of this Summit could not have been more propitious.  But timely and critical as this Summit is, we must recognize from the outset its potential downsides. In this respect, we must ensure that the heightened global attention does not become ephemeral. We must ensure that the spotlight is maintained in its present intensity and not eclipsed, as is often the case, by other priorities in the months to come. This will be vital to ensure sustained action and follow-up.     The other related pitfall is a disproportionate focus on short-term palliatives to mitigate the current emergency at the expense of long-term and more viable measures. We must also be careful not to nurture, albeit inadvertently, crippling structural dependence in beneficiary countries and communities.  The integrated measures recommended in the Final Declaration are otherwise ongoing programmes of national and household food security that most of our countries have already enunciated long before the onset of this crisis.  In the case of Eritrea, for instance, the rolling, five-year, programme of food security that we have launched in 2005 is anchored on the following seven pillars: Nation-wide introduction of an efficient water harvesting and management system; Transformation and modernization of a largely rain-fed agricultural system  into pressurized irrigation; Development of the complimentary fisheries sector; Income supplement for small scale farmers through enhancement of an integrated production of backyard poultry; cattle raising; and, honey production; Public investment in the associated infrastructure of roads; agro-industrial plants; storage facilities and market outlets; Adjustment of the land tenure system through appropriate public sensitization programmes; Selected focus on high-yield cash crops. While these programmes are long-term in nature and aimed at incrementally increasing integrated food production, the Government has already established an inter-Ministerial Task Force to monitor forecasted climatic conditions this year and to pro-actively take all necessary measures to combat and mitigate potential crop shortfall.  In the context of these realities, it is gratifying to witness today heightened international goodwill, solidarity and determination for collective global action to seek enduring remedies to tackle the problem. We hope that today's vibrant sense of collective well-being will lay to rest unhealthy practices of the past that literally and wrongly politicized emergency assistance. Many times in the recent past, our willful focus on long-term measures to stem structural dependence were scoffed at. Requests for inputs that ensure sustainable production turned down in favour of immediate hand-outs. Even well-thought out monetization programmes of food assistance were misconstrued as undermining the WFP's food-aid policy to entail penalties for insightful measures that should have been appreciated.  At any rate, there is no point in harking back to the past. The attitudes and programmes spelt out in the Rome Declaration are noble indeed and let us all join hands to ensure their success.  I thank you.