ABSTRACT
In the last decades of the twentieth century, Africa and Africans have suffered most from refugee crises. In those times, almost one in every three refugees in the world was African. Of the African refugees, many have been from Africa south of the Sahara. The majority of these have been from the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan), an area that has been in “permanent emergency” for decades. Of the countries of the Horn, Ethiopia accounted for the largest refugee population in Africa. While Ethiopia evolved as one of the main sources of refugees in Africa, Sudan became the main destination for Ethiopian refugees between the 1970s and 2000. This chapter’s concern, however, is not why Ethiopia became the largest source of refugees in Africa-a subject matter which is fairly well-studied-but to explore why Sudan ended up being the favorite destination of Ethiopian refugees in the said period. Based upon interviews, U.S. Congressional archives and secondary sources, this chapter displays the role of geography, long-distance caravan trade, religion, Cold War politics and bilateral relations in shaping and reshaping, and determining refugee flows between the two African countries.
