HIGHLIGHTS
743,732 refugees registered in the country
2,145 refugees newly registered in August
22,449 new arrivals registered since January 2016
38,615 Unaccompanied and Separated Children
WORKING WITH PARTNERS
The Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) is UNHCR’s main government counterpart with which close cooperation is maintained to ensure the protection of refugees. UNHCR is fully engaged in coordination fora to mainstream the needs of refugees within humanitarian and national plans. These coordination mechanisms include the Humanitarian Country Team, the Refugee Task Force, donor, NGO and inter-agency meetings at the field and camp levels. This has ensured the effective environment within the Level 3 Emergency for South Sudanese refugees as well as the development of a Regional Refugee Response Plan in an event of an influx.
MAIN ACTIVITIES
Protection
• A party to both the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol and the 1969 OAU Convention, the Government provides protection to refugees from some 20 countries, with the majority originating from South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan. Asylum-seeker from Yemen have also been registered. • Individual refugee status determination is undertaken by the government Eligibility Committee, on which UNHCR sits as an observer. The South Sundanese, Eritreans, Yemenis and Somalis originating from South and Central Somalia are granted automatic recognition. • The Ethiopian Government maintains a policy requiring refugees to reside in 24 refugee camps in the country. However, the Government allows certain refugees to reside in the urban areas, primarily Addis Ababa. They include refugees in need of special medical attention unavailable in camps; refugees with serious protection concerns or inability to stay in camps for humanitarian reasons; and Eritrean Refugees enrolled in the Out of Camp Policy (OCP). A total of 19,150 such refugees reside in Addis Ababa, including 13,159 Eritreans who were recently verified in the capital.