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05 July, 2007
ADDIS ABABA, July 4 (Reuters) - The first of 700 refugees from the Kunama ethnic group displaced by Ethiopia and Eritrea's 1998-2000 border war are being sent to the United States for resettlement, the U.N. refugee agency said on Wednesday.
The Kunama are an ethnic group of about 100,000 who reside on the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a disputed frontier.
The 700 Kunama refugees crossed into Ethiopia from Eritrea after the war in which 70,000 people were killed, complaining of persecution and harassment by the Eritrean government, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
"The Eritrean Kunama refugees are leaving to the United States, after they were granted a resettlement opportunity by Washington," UNHCR said.
All 700 Kunamas are expected to be airlifted by September and will settle in states like Alabama, Florida, Nevada and Washington, UNHCR added.