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January 13, 2013 (ADDIS ABABA) – Eritrean Afar nationals have held their first Diaspora Conference in Sweden calling on the international community to intervene to end worsening atrocities committed by the regime in Asmara.
The Conference which was held in Uppsala under the theme, ‘Towards Political, Social & Economic Emancipation of the Red Sea Afar People’, denounced the alleged genocidal policies of the Eritrean government against the Afar minorities.
The conference called on the UN and the international community at large to pressure Eritrea to immediately stop what they said was an ethnic cleansing policy against the Red Sea Afar people.
The spokesperson of the Red Sea Afar Democratic Organization (RSADO), Yasin Mohamed, told Sudan Tribune from Sweden that over 2,000 Eritrean Afar citizens were killed by government agents over the past few years.
He added that thousands more have disappeared and many others are detained indefinitely without charge.
“We appeal to the UN to put pressure on the Eritrean government to respect the basic human rights of the Eritrean people particularly the Afar people” said a communiqué from the conference.
Participants at the conference thoroughly discussed and consulted over current situations at home and on refugee crises elsewhere.
“We appeal to the UN to give the Afar refugees in Djibouti and Yemen, the protection they have right to under Geneva Convention”, the statement said.
Speaking to Sudan Tribune, RSADO chairman, Ibrahim Haron, on Sunday renewed his organisation’s call for united military action against the Eritrean government.
Haron called on all Eritrean opposition forces, the Eritrean Army and Eritrean people at home and aboard to jointly step-up their struggle to topple the dictatorial government in the Red Sea nation.
Meanwhile, thousands of Eritrean Afar refugees in Ethiopia’s Afar region and in the capital Addis Ababa on Sunday rally in support of the resolutions passed by the conference.
The refugees said they fully support armed struggle as the only option to overthrow president Isaias Afwerki’s government.
They also voiced firm support to Afars’ right to self-determination within a democratic Eritrean federal framework.
(ST)
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