As of July last year, more than 320,000 Eritreans had fled
the country, according to the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
After Syrians, Eritreans are the second most common nationality to arrive on
Italian shores. Eritrea’s president, Isaias Afewerki, who has been in power
since de facto independence from Ethiopia in 1991, has for decades used the
threat of an outbreak of war with Ethiopia as a means of keeping his people
under tight authoritarian rule.
The Eritrean government has been linked with “ruthless
repression” and systemic human rights violations, including carrying out
widespread detention and forcing citizens into indefinite military service,
according to the UN’s first inquiry into human rights in the secretive country.
Rights abuses perpetuated by Eritrea’s government, coupled with dismal economic
prospects, are driving hundreds of Eritreans out of the country every day,
according to an interim report by the UN’s commission of inquiry on human
rights in Eritrea.
“Most Eritreans have no hope for their future,” said Mike
Smith, chairman of the commission, which was formed in June last year.
“National service, whether in a military unit or in a civil assignment, is the
only thing that from the age of 17 they can expect to spend their life doing –
paid between less than $1 and a maximum of $2 a day.”
Describing Eritrea’s culture of “pervasive state control”,
Smith said a network of spies had been created that permeated the basic fabric
of everyday life. “A man employed by national security might not know that his
daughter is similarly employed,” he said, noting that extra-judicial
executions, enforced disappearances and incommunicado detentions were
commonplace. “Is it surprising that, faced with such challenges, Eritreans
leave their country in their hundreds every day?”
Eritrea has long been regarded as one of the world’s most
secretive states, even drawing comparisons with North Korea. It was ranked at
the bottom of the 180 countries assessed in Reporters Without Borders’ (RWB)
2015 press freedom index. “Eritrea systematically violates freedom of
expression and information. It is Africa’s biggest prison for journalists, with
at least 16 currently detained – some of them held incommunicado for years,”
said RWB.
Leslie Lefkow, HRW’s Africa director, said: “The [Eritrean]
government’s refusal to cooperate with human rights investigators is symbolic
of its broader rejection of essential human rights reforms. Until that stance
changes it is impossible to have meaningful impact on the domestic crisis and
the massive exodus of Eritreans provoked by the dire human rights situation.”
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