No haven Refugees attacked in Ethiopia after fleeing Sudan

Abdullah, a Sudanese English teacher in Khartoum, had never imagined that fleeing one conflict would mean running straight into another.

- Faisal Ali

Having escaped his country's civil war and sought refuge in Ethiopia, he found himself forced to move again after the refugee camp he had settled in came under attack from bandits and militias fighting Ethiopian government forces.

The 27-year-old was among thousands of Sudanese refugees who fled UN-operated camps in Ethiopia's Amhara region this year, setting up makeshift encampments in Awlala Forest, a few miles east oftheir original shelter. Away from authorities and sources of sustenance, their vulnerability was only exacerbated.

Abdullah recalled an evening in the forest's pitch darkness, sitting with a friend whose silhouette was barely visible, when they heard the crackle of gunfire. c'I could hear the screams of women and children," he said. "Every night we only hoped to survive."

Three refugees who spent the summer in the Awlala Forest have spoken to the Guardian, sharing their continuing ordeal 19 months after fleeing their home country because of a brutal civil war that is estimated to have claimed between 20,ooo and loo,ooo lives.

Two of the refugees, Abdullah and Mahmoud, now live in a UN-operated transit centre near the Sudanese border, while the third, Karam, has travelled to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.