Separated by war for many years, Ethiopians and Eritreans reunite

Asmara: When Jerusalem Aregay fled Eritrea in 2001, she was sure she would never again see her friends, her uncles and the aunt who had raised her like a daughter. Yet escape was her only option. Eritrea was locked in a tense standoff with Ethiopia. And after two years of fighting on their border, the people of the capital Asmara had grown hostile to Ethiopians like her. So she fled south to a country that was technically her own but that she had never called home.

She believed she was saying goodbye forever to everything and everyone in Eritrea that she had loved. Seventeen years later, she stepped off an Ethiopian Airlines flight in Asmara and into the arms of her aunt.

"We are so happy. Thank God!" Jerusalem said shortly after she was reunited with her relative Tinseu Nigusse. The extraordinary reunion was made possible by the stunning thaw in relations between the two countries who have called off their decades-long conflict.

The resumption of flights between Asmara and the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa has brought families separated by the war back together in emotional scenes.

Day after day at Asmara's airport, a crowd has gathered, waiting for relatives that have not been seen in years. Similar scenes have played out at Addis Ababa's airport.