Background:
The recording contains interviews with three Eritreans who had been deported from Ethiopia. Their personal stories provide an insight to the Ethiopian deportation program and methods in this period.
Side A:
The deportees tell their stories:
Rosa Berhane (17): she was deported from the central Ethiopian province of Shewa; born and grew up in the town of Alem Tena. She was an eighth grade student at high school. Her mother and she herself have been deported in June 1998. Rosa’s father followed later. Both of her parents are originally Eritrean. More family and deportation details are revealed in the recording.
Logoll Noguse (24): born in and deported from Addis Ababa with his mother, while his brothers and father could stay. He was a carpenter and additionally working as a car repairer. In order to keep his Eritrean nationality, he served in the Eritrean army 1995-1997, and then returned to Addis Ababa (where the Ethiopian authorities were suspicious and temporarily jailed him). He was a carpenter and additionally working as a car repairer. More deportation details are revealed in the recording, including scenes of abuse.
The interviewee himself was prisoned in central Ethiopian Fiche and seriously abused with paralysation and reveals details. When his mother was deported to Eritrea, he was left at home alone for eight months, selling all of the house’s properties.
Side B:
The interviewee continues: he was jailed in Fiche along with 1,700 Eritreans. He tells that Eritreans in an Eritrean-Ethiopian student exchange programme who currently studied in Addis Ababa were in the same prison. The Red Cross had finally flown him to Asmara in Eritrea three months ago.
Another deportee, Tesfoir-Gabriel al-Fowag (16), tell his story: he comes from Addis Ababa, while his parents are Eritrean originally. At the age of 16, his father left Eritrea. Although he was one of his class’s best students, Tesfoir-Gabriel was disadvantaged because of his Eritrean roots. One night, the Ethiopian police came to his family’s home, knocked down the door and captured him and his father (his mother used was elsewhere). Both of them were jailed before being deported to Eritrea. At the border, the deportees were forced to walk 5 kilometres with all their belongings. His father, suffering from chronic asthma, passed away at the end of the deportation. More family and deportation details are revealed in the recording.
