More than 500 UN peacekeepers from Ethiopia’s Tigray region have refused to return, fearing for their safety, and have sought asylum in Sudan, highlighting deep ethnic divisions.
Until last year, Ethiopian forces represented the majority of the 4,000-member mission in the disputed Abyei region between Sudan and South Sudan.
The Ethiopian force was replaced by a multinational force in light of the deterioration of the relationship between Addis Ababa and Khartoum against the backdrop of a land dispute and the Renaissance Dam that Ethiopia built on the Blue Nile, which Sudan fears will threaten its access to water.
A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force told AFP in New York that most of the Ethiopian forces had returned, but some of their members had sought asylum.
The source explained that “a number of peacekeeping forces have decided not to return and are seeking international protection and that they seek the United Nations to protect them in a safe place.”
He added, “The responsibility to grant them political asylum lies on the Sudanese authorities, which receive the assistance of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in receiving these individuals.”
And 528 Ethiopian soldiers from Tigray have applied for asylum in Sudan, according to Major Gebre Kidani, a former peacekeeper from Tigray and two of his comrades confirmed the number to AFP.
