Eritrea, in the Horn of Africa, is not in the grip of war or famine. Yet around 5,000 Eritreans flee every month. Why?

A damning United Nations Commission of Inquiry report blames the country’s “gross human rights violations”.

“Faced with a seemingly hopeless situation they feel powerless to change, hundreds of thousands of Eritreans are fleeing their country,” the UN says.

Rights abuses

IIndefinate national service is one of the main drivers, according to the report. Everyone from the age of 17 can be conscripted into the military, and it continues for years. Some conscripts have served for more than 20 years.

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.

Policy shift

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 Eritean 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”.

Eritrean migrants face new asylum battle in EU – BBC News.

An estimated 305,000 Eritreans, or five per cent of the population, have left the country, making them one of the largest groups of migrants into Europe.

Eritrea: Escape from modern-day Sparta – Telegraph.

 (Photo above: Adikeih March 2015 –  innocent child sitting on the remains of her destroyed home)

In the southern city of Eritrea in the town of Adikeih, the regime’s  troops confronted by angry men and women to stop them from destroying their homes. When the armed forces headed to the area (mainly populated by Saho speaking people) to demolish their homes.  Hundreds  of residents came out to streets in solidarity of the victims. Many innocent civilians  were seriously injured and were taken into makeshift  prisons outside the town denying them basic medical attention. It has been reported that a number of  casualties  were died of their wounds, hours after the vicious attack. This resistance and civil  disobedience by brave Adikeih residents have halted the regime’s plans from  demolishing more houses in Adikeih and elsewhere.

(Photo above: Adikeih March 2015 – The regimes destroying civilian home)

(Adikeih March 2015 – There is no honour in attacking unarmed civilians) 

Threatening citizens either to pay unimaginable sums of money or face the risk of their homes being destroyed is now increasingly a common practice to feed the beast and generate money. It’s hopes this civil disobedience by heroic Adikeih residents would make the regime think twice before acting to destroy homes.

Reported Release on Bail of Six Journalists in Eritrea.

Three Eritrean refugees have filed a lawsuit against a Canadian mining firm over claims that it conspired with the Eritrean government to force them and other conscripted workers to work at a copper mine for long hours while receiving little pay and living in squalid conditions.

The men, who now live in an Ethiopian refugee camp, say they were conscripted into the Eritrean army before being made to work “unfairly long hours without enough salary, proper medical services, good shelter [or] enough food”. They worked for the Bisha Mining Share Company (BMSC), which is operated jointly by Vancouver-based Nevsun Resources and Segen Construction, an Eritrean state-owned contractor.

Eritreans sue Canadian mining firm Nevsun over human rights abuses | Global development | The Guardian.

Sweden saaho festival – YouTube.

Between the desert and the fire – YouTube.

Eritrean military bands won’t be visiting Winnipeg – The Carillon.

GENEVA – Sudan is forcing Eritrean refugees to return to their home country, the UN said Friday, warning that their lives and liberty were at risk.

Some 74 Eritreans were forcibly sent back on Monday to Eritrea through the eastern Laffa border crossing point, according to information provided by Sudanese authorities to the UN refugee agency.

“UNHCR is deeply concerned over recent forced returns, or refoulement, of Eritrean and other asylum seekers and refugees from Sudan,” UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.