Udvalget for Udlændinge- og Integrationspolitik 2014-15 (1. samling)
UUI Alm.del Bilag 41
Offentligt
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Fact Finding Mission Report of the Danish Immigration Service,
“Eritrea –
Drivers and Root Causes of Emigration, National Service and the
Possibility of Return. Country of Origin Information for Use in the Asylum
Determination Process”,
UNHCR’s perspective
1. In November 2014 the Danish Immigration Service (DIS) published a fact finding mission
(FFM) report on its website, entitled
“Eritrea –
Drivers and Root Causes of Emigration,
National Service and the Possibility of Return. Country of Origin Information for Use in the
Asylum Determination Process”
(hereafter: “the report”).
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The report summarizes
information gathered by the FFM delegation in Ethiopia (20-27 August 2014), London
(September 2014) and Eritrea (1-17 October 2014).
2. UNHCR welcomes efforts by State asylum services and others to ensure that States and other
stakeholders in asylum procedures have access to high quality country-of-origin information
(COI). Accurate, reliable COI that is also detailed and balanced is a precondition for high-
quality decision-making on applications for international protection. In addition, quality COI,
available and accessible to all decision-makers, legal aid providers and others, has the
potential to contribute to more harmonized adjudication of asylum claims.
3. Against this background, UNHCR welcomes the decision of DIS to produce a COI report in
English on Eritrea, in light of the fact that asylum-seekers from Eritrea are amongst the top
nationalities of asylum-seekers in Europe and elsewhere.
2
UNHCR does, however, have a
number of concerns as regards the methodology used by DIS in the report. These concerns
are outlined below.
4. The report contains
references to “a UN agency” in Asmara, and meeting notes with a “UN
Agency” are included in pp.
31-33 of the Annex to the report. For the sake of clarity and to
avoid any confusion amongst readers of the FFM report, UNHCR wishes to emphasize that
the information ascribed to a “UN Agency” is not information provided by UNHCR (despite
the fact that the
notes of the meeting with a “UN Agency” contain references to “UNHCR
registered” refugees in Shire). UNHCR is not the (Asmara-based)
“UN Agency” referred to
throughout the report.
5. At the same time, notes of meetings between UNHCR in Addis Ababa and in Shire, Ethiopia,
are contained in the Annex of the report (pp. 69-73). However, in the main text of the report
(pp. 1-20 pages), the information provided by UNHCR in Addis Ababa is not used or referred
to, and there is only one general reference to UNHCR Shire as a source of information. In
UNHCR’s view, the main text of the report (pp. 1-20)
could have benefited from inclusion of
UNHCR’s Shire’s description of the procedures for Eritrean arrivals. This information is
however not referred to in the report. Instead, the report relies on speculative statements of
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2
Danish Immigration Service,
Eritrea
–
Drivers and Root Causes of Emigration, National Service and the Possibility of Return Country of
Origin Information for Use in the Asylum Determination Process Report,
5/2014 ENG, November 2014,
http://www.nyidanmark.dk/NR/rdonlyres/B28905F5-5C3F-409B-8A22-0DF0DACBDAEF/0/EritreareportEndeligversion.pdf.
See e.g. UNHCR,
Sharp increase in number of Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers in Europe, Ethiopia and Sudan,
14 November 2014,
http://www.unhcr.org/5465fea1381.html.
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another interlocutor as regards nationality identification of UNHCR registered refugees in
Shire.
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6. The main text of the report (pp. 1-20) makes frequent use of brief summaries of information
provided by informants. Direct quotes are used only rarely. Moreover, on numerous occasions
in the report, viewpoints of different interlocutors are grouped together in one summary
paragraph. As a result, actual statements of, and nuances provided by, interlocutors are not
reflected in the 20-page report.
7. A comparison between the main text of the report and the records of the meeting notes (which
all interlocutors had an opportunity to review and clear; see Methodology Section 1.2)
demonstrates that information provided by interlocutors has often been used selectively in the
report. In other instances, the report ascribes statements to interlocutors that cannot, however,
be traced to these interlocutors’ statements as reviewed and cleared by them and contained in
the annexed meeting notes. The following examples refer:
i.
The report includes the following sentence (or variations of it), attributed to
Prof. Kibreab, no less than three times:
“It is now possible for evaders and
deserters who have left Eritrea illegally to return if they pay the two percent
tax and sign the apology letter at an Eritrean embassy. Kibreab was aware of
a few deserters from the National Service who have visited Eritrea and safely
left the country again.”
However, the record of the conversation with Prof.
Kibreab provided in the annex of the Danish report show that Prof. Kibreab
followed this sentence with the qualification:
“These are invariably
people
who have been naturalized in their countries of asylum.”
This qualification is
not included in the main text of the report on any of the three occasions that
Prof. Kibreab’s statement is quoted.
In another example (page 15), “International Organisation (B)” is said to have
emphasized that “although
it might be possible to return by paying the two
percent tax and signing the apology letter, there is no information available on
the specific profile of persons who are able to benefit from this practice”.
According to the meeting notes,
“International Organisation (B)”
indicated
also that
“It was deemed very unlikely that those who have a fear of
persecution would be approaching Eritrean Embassies to acquire a passport
and consequently try to re-enter
the country”.
This second statement which
qualifies the previous statement has, however, not been incorporated in the
main text of the report.
In a third example, “International Organisation (B)” is said
(on page 19) to
have considered that
“the
reasons for this shift in attitude was the
government’s desire to encourage
Eritreans
to return to Eritrea”.
It should be
noted, however, that this statement cannot be traced to the meeting notes. What
“International Organisation (B)” did consider (according
to the meeting note
and as referenced on page 19 of the report) is that
“the Eritrean government is
increasingly realizing that the exodus of mainly young men and women has
ii.
iii.
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The notes of the meeting with the “UN Agency”
in Asmara
on page 31 indicate that “It was acknowledged by a UN agency that
there is a
possibility
that
maybe
one out of ten UNHCR registered refugees in the Shire camps in northern Ethiopia
could
be from other nationalities,
including Somalis, Sudanese
or any other tribes with similar features. (…) ”.
[Emphasis added].
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reached a scale that threatens the development of Eritrea, as well as that the
government is in the process of leaving its position of isolation and gradually
opening up to the international community”.
iv.
On pp. 19-20,
the report states: “Many of the sources consulted in Eritrea
(Western embassies A, B, E; a Western embassy based in Khartoum (met in
Asmara); a UN agency; an International organization (A); a regional NGO
based in Asmara; a well-known Eritrean intellectual) as well as a Western
embassy (F) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, stated that most of the available reports
on the human rights situation in Eritrea do not reflect the recent changes in
Eritrea.
According to these sources, such reports should therefore not be
considered representative of an accurate image of the current situation in
Eritrea regarding issues such as National Service, illegal exit and the general
human rights situation.”
This is the closing statement of the 20-page report
and thus carries considerable weight. However, the part of the above statement
reflected here in italics, cannot be traced back to any of the meeting notes with
the interlocutors listed at the start of the quoted paragraph.
8.
The report does not include any reflections on the reliability of specific sources of
information. No information is provided in the report about the regulatory framework for the
media, NGOs, research institutes and other actors in Eritrea, nor does the report contain an
assessment of the impact of these regulatory frameworks on the independence of certain
sources and the reliability of information provided by these sources.
UNHCR
December 2014
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