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[Walpurgis]

AFRICAN DICTATORSHIP FUELS MIGRANT CRISIS: Thousands flee isolated Eritrea to escape life of conscription and poverty (The Washington Post, October 20, 2015)

ASMARA, Eritrea—On a cool March evening soon after his 16th birthday, Binyam Abraham waited until his mother and young siblings were sleeping and slipped away to begin the long trek toward Eritrea’s southern border.

With his father trapped in open-ended military service that would soon snare him, too, Binyam walked for 19 hours without food or water to reach Ethiopia. He made a choice 5,000 of his countrymen make each month, by a United Nations estimate: to flee Eritrea and brave the world’s deadliest migrant trail, across the Sahara and the Mediterranean to Europe.

They leave behind one of the world’s fastest-emptying nations: a country of about 4.5 million on the Horn of Africa, governed by a secretive dictatorship accused of human-rights violations, that is playing an outsize role in the biggest global migration crisis since World War II.

“I didn’t tell my mother before I left, but I didn’t have a choice,” Binyam said, [...] “I have to go to Europe so I can help my family.” [...] Binyam, the 16-year old, said he arrived six months ago after fleeing poverty and forced conscription that had trapped his father for decades.
“For as long as I’ve known, he’s been a soldier…. Each year I saw him once, when he was allowed leave,” said Binyam, wearing a soccer jersey stained with food and dirt. “Now I will get to Europe to help my family.”

[...]Like many youngsters here, Binyam is unsure how he will pay for his journey and whether he will survive it: “I heard people are dying, being tortured or enslaved. I heard some die in the desert or the sea,“ he said. ”But some arrive. I hope for that.”

Treacherous Trail
Eritreans are the biggest group coming to Europe through the Sahara, Libya and the Mediterranean, the deadliest migrant route in the world.

Attention is focused, amid the intensifying migration crisis, on Syrians fleeing civil war and making a dramatic run to Europe. Yet by some measures, the exodus from the smaller Eritrea is more extreme. From the start of 2012 to the middle of this year, 1 in 50 Eritreans sought asylum in Europe, nearly twice the ratio of Syrians, based on data from the European Union statistical service Eurostat.

The U.N. estimates that 400,000 Eritreans—9% of the population—have fled in recent years, not counting those who died or were stranded en route.

On the rickety smuggling boats crossing the Mediterranean, Eritreans comfortably outnumber other nationalities. More than a quarter of the 132,000 migrants arriving in Italy between January and September were Eritreans, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Eritreans accounted for a majority of the 3,000 people who have drowned in the Mediterranean this year, humanitarian agencies say.

Despite this toll, emigration here is accelerating. The number of Eritreans seeking asylum in Europe quadrupled from 2011 to 46,000 last year. The exodus is catapulting the African country to the center of a divisive EU debate over which nations’ migrants should be granted refugee status, as the bloc struggles to respond to the wave from Syria.

The Eritreans flee one of the world’s most isolated nations, governed under emergency rule since a war with Ethiopia in 1998. Eritrea earlier fought a 30-year struggle for independence from Ethiopia, which is 20 times its size.

This David-and-Goliath dynamic has spurred Eritrea to maintain a state of emergency for 17 years, officials in Asmara said—suspending political, economic and social progress for the sake of national security.

A June U.N. report accused the regime, led by former rebel commander Isaias Afewerki, of “crimes against humanity” targeting its own population, including torture, mass surveillance and indefinite military conscription that amounts to a form of slavery. The government said the report, based on interviews done outside the country, was biased and false.

Eritrea is also under U.N. sanctions on a charge of supporting al Qaeda-linked terrorism in Somalia. In Eritrea, which is evenly split between Christians and Muslims, the government denies the charge.

Eritreans have been welcomed as refugees by EU governments since the 1980s, when they were fighting for independence against a Communist government in Ethiopia, according to the International Organization for Migration. But EU officials and migration experts say that now, Europe’s visceral debate over migration is pushing governments to reconsider that stance.

African asylum seekers are already being sidelined, say migration policy makers from the U.N. and other organizations.

“While Syrians are fleeing an obviously terrible and documented civil war, Eritreans are fleeing abuses which to the rest of the world are largely invisible because of the regime’s secretiveness,” said Kristina Touzenis, head of the of the Migration Law Unit of the International Organization for Migration, or IOM.

In some countries, a policy shift has begun. The U.K. in the second quarter of this year cut the number of Eritrean asylum seekers accepted to 29% of applicants from 77% in the previous quarter.

The secrecy of Eritrea’s government, which expelled foreign correspondents in 2008, makes it difficult to document forces behind the exodus.

[...] Eritrean officials say asylum seekers exaggerate hardships and leave because Europeans grant them refugee status. “If people feel that if you get to Europe asylum is easy, that’s a pull factor,” said Information Minister Yemane Ghebre Meskel.

Indefinite conscription and isolation are necessary, he said, because the country remains effectively at war with Ethiopia, which he said occupies Eritrean territory in violation of a U.N.-sponsored peace agreement. Ethiopia denies that any land it controls belongs to Eritrea.

Eritreans abroad say they are pushed to leave by conscription that enlists every man and woman in the military during their last year of high school. Last week, 10 Eritrean soccer players who were in Botswana for a match defected there. Some Eritrean refugees fled to Israel through the Sinai Desert until Israel erected a fence there. This week, an Eritrean man was killed in Israel when attacked by a mob who mistook him for an assailant at an earlier bus-stop attack.

[...] [Conscripts] are locked in a system that pays a monthly stipend of 500 nakfa, about $10 on the black market, and forbidden to leave the country.

Officials say the exodus has one upside for the impoverished nation: hard currency. Money from the expanding diaspora provides a badly needed boost to the economy.

[...] The International Organization for Migration says the presence of wealthier migrant relatives spurs the exodus by reinforcing the notion that emigration is a path to freedom and wealth.

“It’s a dilemma for the government,” Mr. Ghebre Meskel said: “On the one hand, they come up with whatever stories they like to obtain asylum. But they support their families, there are remittances.”

Refugees say the camp houses a sophisticated network of Eritrean and Ethiopian smugglers who can organize journeys if residents have the money. Some who leave for Europe will never make it. The camp’s “mourning house” is where people go to cry and pray for friends or relatives who perished on the journey.

Eritrean officials conceded torture occurs in some prisons but said it wasn’t systematic. “Torture is not allowed. That does not mean it may not happen here and there,” said Mr. Ghebre Meskel, the information minister.

“Sometimes you will meet people who have fled here and they will have some marks. It can happen in some units,” he said. “But one has to draw a difference: It is not systematic, it’s not officially sanctioned, it’s not in the law.”

For the geographically impaired.

Background
After WWII, Italy lost Italian East Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia) so the Allies subdivided it. Ethiopia wanted Eritrea so the British and Americans gave it to them as a reward for their support during the war. A decade later, Ethiopia dissolved the Eritrean parliament so the Eritreans waged a 30 year war for independence. In 1991, the leader of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) became the first and only president of Eritrea.

In 1998, Eritrea went to war with Ethiopia for two years. While Eritrea and Ethiopia—two of the world's poorest countries—spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the war and suffered tens of thousands of casualties as a direct consequence of the conflict, only minor border changes resulted. According to a ruling by an international commission in The Hague, Eritrea broke international law and triggered the war by invading Ethiopia. At the end of the war, Ethiopia held all of the disputed territory and had advanced into Eritrea. After the war ended, the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission, a body founded by the UN, established that Badme, the disputed territory at the heart of the conflict, belongs to Eritrea. As of 2015, Ethiopia still occupies the territory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrean–Ethiopian_War

 

[Mesousa]

The TPLF is the poster child of good intentions leading to hell. Things were not better under Derg, but things are definitely better for Tigray(and all minorities) in Ethiopia than it is in Eritrea.

 

[Morat]

Good post OP. Sadly, I think a lot of people in Europe have barely heard of Eritrea, let alone being aware of the situation there.

 

[Walpurgis]

Good post OP. Sadly, I think a lot of people in Europe have barely heard of Eritrea, let alone being aware of the situation there.

I've noticed Eritrea popping up in a lot of the charts about the origins of the migrants so I had no idea about this myself until a few days ago. The media blockade certainly hasn't helped the situation. Eritrea ranks dead last in the 2015 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders. Here's what they had to say about it.

Deservedly last in the index for the past seven years, 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. In 2014 alone, Reporters Without Borders supported about 30 requests for international protection filed by Eritrean journalists who had fled their country. President Afeworki, who is on the Reporters Without Borders list of “Predators of Press Freedom,” does not envisage reforms any time soon and continues to ignore the international community’s recommendations. In early 2014, he said: Those who think there will be democracy in this country can think so in another world.”

This combined with the fact that Eritrea is located in sub-Saharan Africa have led to citizens not knowing and elected officials not caring.

 

[Messofanego]

Thanks for the article, Walpurgis.

 

[Walpurgis]

This BBC article elaborates on the EU's "policy shift" as a result of the migrant crisis.

UN investigators say "slavery-like practices" are widespread, with conscripts subjected to hard labour, with poor food, bad hygiene and wretched pay. The Eritrean government has dismissed the UN's findings as "totally unfounded and devoid of all merit". Yet for most Eritreans, it is impossible to get an exit visa to leave the country legally. And by fleeing conscription they risk being arrested as "traitors" if they return. The EU cannot send Syrian refugees back to their war-torn country. And Eritreans' asylum claims have generally been treated as legitimate in the EU. But despite the abuses in Eritrea, documented by the UN and human rights groups, some countries are now considering sending Eritreans home.

A Danish Immigration Service report, from November 2014, suggested that Eritrea's policy towards returnees had become more lenient. It was based on a fact-finding mission, but did not name its sources. It quoted the Eritrean Foreign Ministry as saying Eritreans abroad could now "regularise their relationship with the authorities" by paying a 2% income tax at an Eritrean embassy and signing an apology letter. "This has been done by a number of people and they have returned to Eritrea without any complications," the report said, quoting a ministry statement. But the ministry gave "no specific information" about whether Eritrea's national service would be changed.

The report was criticised by Danish media and Human Rights Watch, which described it as "more like a political effort to stem migration than an honest assessment of Eritrea's human rights situation". The Norwegian government sent its own assessment team to Eritrea. It was led by Norway's Deputy Minister of Justice Joeran Kellmyr. Speaking to the BBC, Mr Kellmyr said he had received an assurance from Eritrea's foreign minister that national service would be reduced to 18 months. "It's important for everyone," said Mr Kellmyr. "If national service is reduced, according to human rights standards, this could mean that a lot of Eritrean people don't any more have the right to seek asylum."

In December UK officials also visited Eritrea to discuss the migration problem. And in March this year a new UK policy towards Eritrean asylum-seekers was announced. New guidelines stated that conscription would no longer be automatic grounds for granting asylum, since national service would no longer continue indefinitely. But an Eritrean migration expert, Prof Gaim Kibreab, said there was "no evidence" for the UK guidelines' assertion that "national service is generally between 18 months and four years".

In 2011 the UN Security Council condemned Eritrea's collection of a 2% tax on the incomes of all of its citizens living abroad - the so-called "diaspora tax". UN Resolution 2023 accused Eritrea of using the tax to fund armed opposition groups in the Horn of Africa, including the Islamist al-Shabab in Somalia.

[..]The UK government told Eritrea that the "use of coercion or other illicit means to collect the [diaspora] tax in the UK must cease". Yet Eritreans in the UK say they are still being pressurised to pay up. Eritrean opposition activist Selam Kidane, based in London, said "they examine your pay slips and calculate how much your 2% tax comes to, but the actual payment is made in Asmara". She said the payment was necessary before any official transaction could be made in Eritrea - whether it was selling a parent's home or getting a visa. "It is clear coercion," she said.

The UK Home Office has decided that Eritreans are not at risk if they refuse to comply with a "reasonable request to pay diaspora tax". So their fear of the consequences of not paying the tax cannot be grounds for UK protection. "Previous country guidance indicated that those who had left illegally were at risk on return to Eritrea. "However, up-to-date information from inside Eritrea suggests this is no longer the case," the UK Home Office says. The Eritrean government maintains those who leave are economic migrants and says Eritrean "victims of human trafficking" who return home will not face punishment. Yet the recent UN report spoke of some Eritrean returnees suffering detention for eight months to three years and maltreatment "to the point of torture".

TL;DR - Some EU countries are trying to make Eritrean refugees ineligible for asylum, mainly by using the Eritrean government as a source for information. The Eritrean government claims that refugees must pay a 2% diaspora tax (used to fund terrorists) and write an apology letter, and all will be good. In reality, those who return are tortured. Norway and the U.K. are ignoring this.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

UK continues to be an embarrassment

Truly disgusting policy shift.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

Eritrea has had a Swedish journalist jailed for years and years. I doubt we'll ever get him back. You never hear good things about that place.

This is like North Korea but with open borders. Eventually noone will be left in that hellhole, at the cost of millions of refugees everywhere else, and for what? Another shitty dictator living a shitty dictator life :/

 

[Oriel]

Often called the North Korea of Africa and frequently a rival with that country when it comes to appaling human rights. The permanent conscription is akin to legalised slavery as the "soldiers" are utilised less for military needs and more as a source of free labour. Ethiopia should never have given up Eritrea.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

Good post OP. Sadly, I think a lot of people in Europe have barely heard of Eritrea, let alone being aware of the situation there.

should probably upgrade that to 'know it even exists'. I didn't before reading this thread, at least.

I've always sucked at geography and remembering country names though.

 

[Walpurgis]

should probably upgrade that to 'know it even exists'. I didn't before reading this thread, at least.

I've always sucked at geography and remembering country names though.

Haha! It's a small country so I knew that most people wouldn't be a familiar with it (which is why I included a map ).

 

[Kangi]

This is that country that keeps tripping me up on "name all the countries" quizzes.

Well, screw you too, Eritrea.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Haha! It's a small country so I knew that most people wouldn't be a familiar with it (which is why I included a map ).

Some of us older GAF are aware of Eritrea due to the terrible famines and the wars but that was in the 80s & 90s. Live Aid covered Ethiopian and Eritrea didn't it? Then there were the horrible stories of the conflict with Ethiopia not soon after.

 

[dcdobson]

Often called the North Korea of Africa and frequently a rival with that country when it comes to appaling human rights. The permanent conscription is akin to legalised slavery as the "soldiers" are utilised less for military needs and more as a source of free labour. Ethiopia should never have given up Eritrea.

To be fair, the Ethiopian government is only marginally less shitty.

 

[Neo C.]

Good post OP. Sadly, I think a lot of people in Europe have barely heard of Eritrea, let alone being aware of the situation there.

They don't know the situation, but they sure have an opinion about Eritreans, one of the largest refugee group now.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

We have dozens of Eritreans that attend my local church here in Midwestern USA. It's a sad thing all around. One gentleman had a brother killed by ISIS recently, which made me wonder if he was killed in Libya or if ISIS was making a statement in Eritrea itself.

 

[Violet_0]

To be fair, the Ethiopian government is only marginally less shitty.

Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen - it has to be one of the worst geographical regions on the globe

 

[Sapphire Dreams]

Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Yemen - it has to be one of the worst geographical regions on the globe

Does Somalia even have a proper government ?

 

[Valhelm]

The TPLF is the poster child of good intentions leading to hell. Things were not better under Derg, but things are definitely better for Tigray(and all minorities) in Ethiopia than it is in Eritrea.

Did conditions actually worsen in Ethiopia after the Communist takeover and overthrow of the monarchy?

 

[Blue Lou]

A few years ago, their national football (soccer) team went to live in the Netherlands.

They go through a new team every couple of years because the players abscond during tournaments held in other countries.

 

[Violet_0]

Does Somalia even have a proper government ?

holed up in Mogadishu, surrounded and under siege by extremist rebel groups - that was the situation a while ago, anyway, I don't know if anything has changed since then

 

[JonnyDBrit]

I was looking up Eritrea recently after seeing it mentioned here and elsewhere, but jesus christ at my country easing up on something like this.

 

[Mesousa]

Did conditions actually worsen in Ethiopia after the Communist takeover and overthrow of the monarchy?

There was pretty big famine that kind of made life more miserable during it. I don't know for sure actually because I wasn't there(or alive) during it. The people I know said it was awful before and during Derg though.

 

[Weckum]

holed up in Mogadishu, surrounded and under siege by extremist rebel groups - that was the situation a while ago, anyway, I don't know if anything has changed since then

It's better now, at least around the big cities. AMISOM troops have recaptured most big cities, Al-Shabaab is on the defence. However, it is still a dire situation for the whole country.

Too bad, because it is absolutely beautiful and the people that I've met from there are amazingly nice.

 

[Ogodei]

I love these kinds of threads, i learn a lot.

Eritrea's situation is a shame for both countries: it makes Ethiopia landlocked which is bad for poverty, but the country is an absolute hellhole and would likely have been better off if they had stayed (the reforms that ended Communism and built a federal government in Ethiopia made things at least a little better for the non-Amharic minorities, although Ethiopia has bottom-ranked scores from Freedom House too, but the difference between them is like comparing Russia with Turkmenistan or North Korea).

 

[JinjoUnchained]

Thanks for the article, OP. It's important that people know about the crises that are not as well-reported in western media. We get so much coverage on every development in Syria and Ukraine, and they are important, but virtually nothing on crises and human rights abuses in Yemen, Eritrea, and Equatorial Guinea among others. What I'm saying is the media shouldn't only report on foreign crises that directly impact western audiences.

This is that country that keeps tripping me up on "name all the countries" quizzes.

Well, screw you too, Eritrea.

It helps me to break the map into regions, rather than trying to memorize lists by rote. In this case, the Horn of Africa contains Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia. Next region I'd go with is Lake Victoria with Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. Then Rwanda and Burundi lead you into Central Africa. And so on with the rest of the map and other regions.

 

[yanipheonu]

Had a Political science class where we had a former Canadian Minister talking to the class. There was obviously a question of the refugee crisis Canada had just become a part of at the time.

His insight? things are going to get much worse, with more immigrants from more places moving around, before they get better. And Canada, as well as all countries involved, better have a plan for when the growth happens. Because they aren't going to wait.

 

[Oriel]

To be fair, the Ethiopian government is only marginally less shitty.

It has its problems but is in no way comparable to Eritrea. It's like comparing China with North Korea, a big difference.

 

[Pusherman]

Truly tragic what is happening over there. Been to Eritrea 4 times to visit family but I don't think I'll return there any time soon.

 

[Beowulf28]

My family is from Eritrea, have a lot of cousins who were born there who have had to make the journey out of that hell hole to escape military service.

 

[mcz117chief]

Good post OP. Sadly, I think a lot of people in Europe have barely heard of Eritrea, let alone being aware of the situation there.

I don't think so, we learned about the situation there in high school. I can't speak for everybody though. Really a terrible state of affairs there since forever :/

 

[dcdobson]

It has its problems but is in no way comparable to Eritrea. It's like comparing China with North Korea, a big difference.

That's probably fair.

 

[Walpurgis]

Does Somalia even have a proper government ?

holed up in Mogadishu, surrounded and under siege by extremist rebel groups - that was the situation a while ago, anyway, I don't know if anything has changed since then

It's better now, at least around the big cities. AMISOM troops have recaptured most big cities, Al-Shabaab is on the defence. However, it is still a dire situation for the whole country.

Too bad, because it is absolutely beautiful and the people that I've met from there are amazingly nice.

Surprisingly enough, Somalia is actually doing alright, well, most of it. You still have suicide bombings scroll by at the bottom of CNN several times a month. However, these are generally restricted to central (Mogadishu) and southern Somalia.

After the country collapsed, several self-governing autonomous regions were formed. The important ones being, Somaliland to the northwest and Puntland to the northeast. After being carpet bombed by the dictator in the final years of his reign, Somaliland wanted nothing to do with the rest of Somalia and broke off immediately after the dictator was ousted. This former British protectorate is the most stable part of Somalia. While Puntland is also autonomous want to rejoin Somalia so they have been helping the federal government fight rebels.

Basically, Somaliland is relatively safe, Puntland less so, but still okay; the rest of the country is a warzone - Mogadishu especially. Without the African Union protecting them, their blood would drain into the streets.

Two things to watch out for, in the distant future, is Somalia's inevitable attempt to reclaim the Ogaden Basin. You see how Somalia is shaped like a 7? Now connect the two ends of that 7. That is how Somalia used to look until the British gave that chunk to Ethiopia after WWII. The British also gave another sizable piece to Kenya. The same thing will happen there as well. Eritrea will help. Many of the world's conflicts can be traced back to near-sighted idiots drawing lines on maps. That being said, the horn of Africa got off easy compared to some other parts of the continent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Eastern_Province,_Kenya