{"id":13953,"date":"2022-04-12T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T19:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=13953"},"modified":"2022-04-13T19:37:43","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T19:37:43","slug":"mixed-emotions-for-family-partially-reunited-after-fleeing-tigray-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=13953","title":{"rendered":"Mixed emotions for family partially reunited after fleeing Tigray conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A bittersweet reunion for an Ethiopian mother and her daughter after months of separation<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: UNHCR<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Letha was seven months pregnant when she made the difficult decision to leave her home in Ethiopia\u2019s western Tigray region without all of her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the fighting broke out in November 2020, she was separated from her husband, son and daughter and fled across the border into Sudan with her two youngest children, Ermyas, 9 and Mahelet, 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was scared something bad would happen to us if we stayed,\u201d she says. \u201cWe had no choice but to escape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After crossing the border, they were accomodated at a reception centre where UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, provided them with assistance, including food and shelter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She later delivered a healthy baby boy, but she still felt bereft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t at peace, because I didn\u2019t know where the rest of my family was,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 60,000 Ethiopian refugees have fled to eastern Sudan since the conflict began in Ethiopia\u2019s Tigray region in November 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fighting had scattered Letha\u2019s family to different parts of Tigray. Her 11-year-old daughter Eymaret had gone to stay with her aunt in another town after the conflict closed schools, while her son was with his father in Shire, a town in Ethiopia\u2019s Tigray Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The silence was tough to handle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Even though communication lines were often down in Tigray, Letha was determined to keep trying to contact her loved ones. A Restoring Family Links antenna service was set up by UNHCR partners, the International Committee fo the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Sudanese Red Crescent Society (SRCS), in the reception centres near the border to help refugees like Letha locate loved ones they had lost contact with by making free phone calls or writing letters. In cases where contact can not be restored, ICRC and SRCS register tracing requests and conduct active searches both within the camps and across the border, in cooperation with the ICRC in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe silence was tough to handle,\u201d says Letha. \u201cI was scared something terrible had happened, \u201cbut I couldn\u2019t give up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She finally made contact with Eymaret, who had traveled with her aunt to Humera, near the border with Sudan. Eymaret later crossed Tekeze River on her own, and then made her way on foot to Hamdayet Transit Centre where she was met by her uncle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have time to think. I just crossed the river and prayed I would make it,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With help from UNHCR, UNICEF and the Sudanese State Council for Child Welfare (SCCW), Eymaret was eventually reunited with her mother, bringing their seven-month period of anxious separation to an end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Letha and her daughter Eymaret, with baby Mahder, after being reunited.\u00a0 \u00a9\u00a0UNHCR\/Abdulkhaliq Khalif<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was so happy to see her,\u201d says Letha. \u201cIt\u2019s every mother\u2019s worst nightmare to lose a child and I was scared this would be my fate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the work of partners on reunifiying separated families, UNHCR is providing assistance to unaccompanied and separated children like Eymaret, such as education and arranging foster families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are pleased this story has a happy ending and that we were able to ensure Eymaret\u2019s protection and wellbeing,\u201d says Sameh Fahmy, UNHCR\u2019s Protection Officer in Gedaref, who worked closely with partners to reunite Letha and Eymaret. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still for Letha, the reunion is bitter sweet as she constantly thinks about her husband and son for whom the search is still ongoing and who are yet to meet the newest member of the family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is worried about the security situation and the fact that \u201cit is dangerous and increasingly difficult for people, especially men, to travel due to the fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had a good life back home and lived peacefully. My dream is for our whole family to be together again,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bittersweet reunion for an Ethiopian mother and her daughter after months of separation Source: UNHCR Letha was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[32,97],"class_list":["post-13953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-english","tag-unhcr"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25.jpg",966,724,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25.jpg",300,225,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25.jpg",640,480,false],"large":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25.jpg",640,480,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25.jpg",966,724,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25.jpg",966,724,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25.jpg",767,575,false],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25.jpg",547,410,false],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25-600x450.jpg",600,450,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/axumawian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/1-25-150x150.jpg",100,100,true]},"author_info":{"info":["Axumawian Media"]},"category_info":"Article<\/a>","tag_info":"Article","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13956,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13953\/revisions\/13956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}