Refugees from Libya celebrate Easter in camp

CHOUCHA, Tunisia — Refugees from the conflict in Libya gathered in a refugee camp across the border in Tunisia Sunday to celebrate Easter in a makeshift church of two tents and a homemade wooden cross.

An all-male group of 60-odd people, mainly Eritreans and Nigerians, gathered to pray and sing psalms in the camp at Choucha, while the women prepared a traditional Eritrean dish.

The group is among tens of thousands of people who have fled Libya since fighting erupted between Moamer Kadhafi's men and rebels in mid-February. Many fear the camp has become a dead end.

"I don't want to go back to Eritrea, it is a dictatorship. Over there, men are forced into open-ended military service," the priest who led Sunday's camp site service told AFP, declining to give his name.

The priest, who has been at Choucha since March 20, says his only hope is that the UN's refugee agency will find a country willing to grant him asylum.

On the other side of the improvised church, a Nigerian woman named Queen sits with a 14-month-old child, Lability, in her arms.

"She is the daughter of my friend," she says. "My child and my husband are still stuck in Tripoli."

Queen has shared a tent with her friend Elisabeth and the child for two months. Eight months pregnant, Elisabeth's husband has also been unable to leave Tripoli.

The two women, who refuse to return to Nigeria without their husbands and children, complain that conditions are harsh.

"There is only pasta and couscous without meat, it is not enough for my baby," says Elisabeth, her hands protectively over her stomach.

In another tent Marc, a 35-year-old Ivorian, says there is no question of going home.

He is from the south of the Ivory Coast, from a village that backed Laurent Gbagbo, the president ousted after a months-long post-election battle on April 11.

"The international community says that stability has returned (to the Ivory Coast) but that is not true," he says.

The camp at Choucha houses about 6,000 refugees, most of whom are hoping to obtain refugee status enabling them to demand seek asylum in a safe country.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees set up a structure in the camp a week ago to study all the applications.