In the Alps, the last major town before Austria is a purgatory for those headed north Five Eritrean youths race down the platform. They’ve avoided the 15 or so Italian police and Carabinieri officers who are there to stop them climbing aboard. But inside the final express carriage, a huge …
Read More »Rebel group says Sudan “failed” to protect Eritrean refugees
ADDIS ABABA – An Eritrean opposition group on Sunday accused the Sudanese government of failing to provide enough protection to Eritrean refugees who are subjected to abductions by criminal gangs from in and around Shagarab refugee camp in Eastern Sudan. Young Eritrean refugees in Sudan who have fled persecution in …
Read More »The Guardian view on Eritrea: a regime of terror
The EU may be saving lives in the Mediterranean but it is turning a blind eye to the political repression in Africa’s worst dictatorship Europe’s response to the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean has rightly – if belatedly – focused on saving lives. Not a week goes by now without …
Read More »UN Report Alleges Forced Labor at Canadian-Owned Mine in Eritrea
By Hilary Beaumont A UN report on human rights abuses in Eritrea has unearthed new allegations of forced labor at a Canadian-owned mining company. According to the report, released this week, some of the most atrocious human rights violations are happening in Eritrea, an east-African nation that’s been compared to …
Read More »ERITREA – LAST IN THE WORLD PRESS FREEDOM INDEX FOR THE PAST EIGHT YEARS
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) hails this week’s report by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea. Released on 8 June, the report says some of the human rights violations by President Issayas Afeworki’s government, which include the arbitrary detention of journalists, may constitute crimes against humanity. Although …
Read More »UN Inquiry reports gross human rights violations in Eritrea
GENEVA (8 June 2015) — The Government of Eritrea is responsible for systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations that have created a climate of fear in which dissent is stifled, a large proportion of the population is subjected to forced labour and imprisonment, and hundreds of thousands of refugees …
Read More »Tighter border controls block Eritrean migrants in Italian Alps
By Steve Scherer BOLZANO, Italy May 29 (Reuters) – Some 200 mostly Eritrean migrants heading northwards from Italy were turned back by police in the Italian Alps on Friday and left sleeping in train stations as European countries tightened frontier checks before a global summit in Germany. EU countries are …
Read More »Eritrea says rights activists to blame for migrant crisis
Addis Ababa (AFP) – The secretive Horn of Africa state of Eritrea claimed Monday that human rights activists were partly to blame for the hordes of migrants heading to Europe. The isolationist Red Sea dictatorship is one of the largest contributors to the exodus across the Mediterranean and has in …
Read More »Why thousands of asylum-seekers are fleeing Eritrea and risking their lives in the Mediterranean
We have become accustomed to headlines about migrants in the Mediterranean. Most recently it was reported that the Italian authorities rescued nearly 7,000 migrants off the coast of Libya over one weekend. Often, tragically, we read instead of thousands drowning. Last year more than 170,000 migrants arrived by boat in Italy last year. …
Read More »Brutalised Eritreans faced with a terrible choice
SINEAD O’SHEA They must either live in misery or risk death by leaving a country that is in the grip of a highly repressive regime. Horror has been expressed at the latest migrant drowning catastrophe in the Mediterranean. Little has been said, however, about Eritrea. But 22% of all people …
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