INVITATION: Effective measures to combat causes of flight needed: Crimes in Ethiopia and Sudan must be prosecuted!

Creative action with refugees from Ethiopia and Darfur at the Brandenburg Gate (Pariser Platz) in Berlin

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

11 am to 1 pm

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is planning a creative human rights action at the Brandenburg Gate (Pariser Platz) in Berlin to criticize the problematic refugee policy in Germany and the EU. It will take place on Wednesday, October 9, shortly before the beginning of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Africa. “The causes of flight cannot be resolved in cooperation with tyrants who oppress their own people or lead a war against them – thus forcing them to flee,” said Ulrich Delius, the STP’s Africa-expert. “The only effective measure to resolve the causes of flight in the longer run would be to stop oppression and expulsion.”

Together with Oromo refugees from Ethiopia and Darfuris from the western Sudan who have found refuge in Germany, the human rights organization will express criticism – with banners, an inflatable boat, a lifebuoys painted in EU colors, and signs – and demand that the serious human rights violations in both countries must no longer go unpunished.

The EU has promised the Sudanese regime hundreds of millions of Euros if the country takes measures to ensure that refugees from the neighboring countries will not be able to reach Europe – while the Sudanese air force and armed militias are leading a bloody war against the black African population in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Darfur are currently living in huge refugee camps, under precarious conditions. The EU has also remained silent about the suppression and expulsion of the Oromo in Ethiopia and the bloody crackdowns on protests.

Header photo: Unicef via Flickr