Eyewitness Account

The Eritrean Mafia Thriving in Juba

Fri - 17 Jun Written by Juba Visitor

One local person described the Eritreans as Mafiosi. They make quick money, lots of it, wire it to Arab countries, do not employ the locals, and their trading partners are none but other Eritreans in Uganda. It is all in the ‘family’. What I saw there, again, ‘blew me away!’ One really needs to watch what is happening there. Juba is being exploited to the maximum and the generals, who drive nothing but four wheel drives, are enjoying their cut. The majority of the population are left high and dry. ...

I think the Eritrean government is behind this ‘gold rush’ operation.

(Photo: Juba, capital of South Sudan)

Eritrea hires Sophia Tesfamariam “Officially”

Fri - 05 Mar Written by Tewolde Tesfu

Unconfirmed sources say that Sophia Tesfamariam now has her own office at the embassy located on New Hampshire Avenue, plus a smaller one at ECCC (Eritrean Community Center) on 601 L Street, NW, Washington, DC. This is the same place that the FBI raided a few years ago.

Eritrea has been under a UN imposed Sanction since December 23, 2009. This Sanction has a travel ban on high ranking officials, arms embargo and condition to freeze assets belonging to individuals or firms related thereof.

Observers in the Diaspora see this “hiring” as preemption to the diplomatic void that could be created if Presidential advisors who speak English such as Yemane Ghebreab and Yemane Gebremeskel are prohibited from traveling abroad. While Sophia is at the forefront of the media blitz by the regime, it is claimed the main enforcers of the regime’s campaign of intimidation and blackmail remain behind.

Stories from Underground Prison in Eritrea: Torture, Madness, Slave Labour, Death and a Father Searching for his Son (Life under PFDJ)

Mon - 01 Mar Written by Mussie Hadgu

Noting his conditions, the health personnel collaborated and extended their support to him by providing him accommodation to sleep with them (as the temperature is relatively better outside than in the underground cell and there is fresh air outside) and supplied him food from their own rations which were relatively better than the food provided to the prisoners. Later in that night, the prison officer (now I forgot his name) who was next in rank to “Wedi Granite” in authority learned that the health personnel had collaborated with the patient and he was very much angry that Kibrom had been staying outside the underground cell. He threatened the health personnel with punishment for their actions and ordered Kibrom to be returned to the underground cell.

Torture, Suffering and Imprisonment (Life under PFDJ)

Sun - 07 Feb Written by Mussie Hadgu

The editor would like to remind readers that what happened to Mussie Hadgu is a normal occurrence among the youth of Eritrea. Almost every escaped Warsai has a personal story to tell of how he or she went in and out of prison, concentration camp or training camp. Usually, it is after a number of false attempts that the escapees make it to the refugee camps in Ethiopia or Sudan. In between, there are tales of capture, torture and escape, to be repeated again in recapture, torture and escape and so on until one manages to escape for good. And this is the story of the fortunate ones. Others are either shot dead while crossing the border or languishing in some underground prisons. Fortunately, Mussie Hadgu has finally made it to safety. But in between is the story of the horrors that the youth of Eritrea face.

Eritrea: Frozen and Reshuffled, Again

Sun - 17 Jan Written by Bawza #1 & Bawza #72

Sources from Asmara (Eritrea) indicate that the Afwerki administration has been on a panic mood since the day the UN has passed the resolution to impose sanctions on Eritrea. President Isaias Afwerki has fallen into old proven tactics that served him well in times of crisis. Information leaked out from Colonel Tesfaldet Habteselasie office (President’s Office) indicate that as a number of people that have been sidelined for a long time (in the Orwellian language of the PFDJ ruling party, “frozen”) are being “reactivated” to resume important posts, various reshufflings are also being made.

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Phone Line to Massawa, Eritrea Disconnected

Fri - 15 Jan Written by Bawza #72

There is an unexplained telephone (telephone prefix 552) communication clamp down in Massawa. This is affecting the areas of Tewalet and the inner Massawa.

Neither the residents nor the public has been informed.

The official rumors state that the communication lines will re-open late April 2010.

Speculations are running high among officials and the public. One is that since the regime is leaking like a barrel full of holes, the paranoia has set in to the point where a complete silence on verbal communication where the inner circle is circumscribed into a limited area and persons.

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The Commander of the Eritrean Air Force and the Director of Eritrea’s Commercial Bank are allegedly on their way to Ukraine to purchase arms.

Mon - 28 Dec Written by Bawza from Asmara

Both General Teklai Habteselassie, the Commander of the Eritrean Air Force, and Yemane Tesfai, General Manager of the state-owned Commercial Bank of Eritrrea, are allegedly on their way to Ukraine in a last minute effort to purchase arms for the air force before the curtain falls over Eritrea. The same sources from Eritrea also state that three higher officials who are on sick leave abroad have been ordered back to the country. They are Alamin Mohammed Said, Minister Berhane Abrehe and Brigader General Futstum (Wedi Memhir). Both events have been triggered by the UN resolution to sanction Eritrea at three levels: arms embargo, assets freeze and travel ban.

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Eritrean Field Notes: A lonely nation under a glass

Tue - 15 Dec Written by Washington Post

Foreigners and Eritreans alike began to tell me, always anonymously, how they saw Asmara. "My own personal 'Truman Show,' " was one description. "Animal Farm," came another. One young Eritrean explained the country's system of indefinite national service as a kind of never-ending forced labor camp. Another, explaining how complete social control is here, told me: "Resistance is futile -- the only escape is to flee!"

The fact that Eritrea produces more asylum seekers than all but one other country on the planet became more striking with each gently passing afternoon.

Many Eritreans told me they had brothers, husbands, uncles and others who had disappeared over the years, presumably into desert prisons. Sometimes, just as mysteriously, they would reappear, often with scars. One person told me a friend reappeared with brain damage.

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Picture from Eritrea: Faith Mission church in Asmara

Mon - 14 Dec Written by AI Staff

Here is a picture I took as few weeks ago of the closed Faith Mission Church in Asmara reported about on your website today.

Please send us images and brief description of the images at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Update on Famine Situation

Fri - 30 Oct Written by Mussie Hadgu (from Eritrea)

The conditions in Wi’a concentration/training camp in the past 7- 9 months have worsened more than any other time. Food rations were reduced further to 3 pieces of sorghum bread per person per day without any supplements such as sauce except limited ration of tea. The shortage of food is compounded by the closure of the camp for family visits which used to facilitate the supply of food from families and relatives to the prisoners/trainees.

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An Assassination Attempt on President Isaias Afewerki

Fri - 14 Aug Written by BerQi # 93

On 13 August, 2009, around 4:00 PM, in the vicinity of Mai-Ata’l, an assassination attempt on the President of Eritrea, Isaias Afewerki,was conducted.

In this failed assassination attempt, the president was barely able to escape death. The man who tried to kill the president though, a former freedom fighter First Lieutenant Daniel Habte Yihdego, after an exchange of fire with the President’s security, was shot to death. He was 43 years old.

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Government of Eritrea making business out of poverty

Thu - 13 Aug Written by Mussie Hadgu

Since last month the government of Eritrea is preoccupied in advertising and facilitating the exportation of poor women to Kuwait for exchange of hard currency. The scheme is designed to raise hard currency to the government by sending the poor women who are suffering from extreme poverty as the result of the government policy to work in Kuwait as cleaners- exploiting them for being poor. Under this scheme the poor women enter contractual agreement for a period of two years with a Kuwaiti company to work as cleaners and will be paid monthly salary of USD 173. The criteria to get permission to make the contractual agreement deal are:

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Picture from Eritrea: People queing for a few available Fish in keren

Sat - 25 Jul Written by Administrator

I took these photos on my visit to Keren last few weeks.
The photos shows people queing for a few available Fish in Keren.

Please send us images and brief description of the images at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Eritrea Media Sustainability Index, 2012

The rapid advancement in media technology has opened up world media, making it increasingly difficult to conceal what is going on within the borders of a totalitarian state. Eritrea remains one of the few states in the world to successfully isolate its people from global information exchange. Under the slogan “Serving the Truth,” Eritrean media are managed entirely by the Ministry of Information. The ministry simply manufactures and disseminates government propaganda, stifling alternative views while protecting the country’s leadership.

Eritreans in Canada say consul still demands cash from them

There are calls to expel Eritrea's top diplomat in Canada because he presides over a system that's milking money from the Eritrean community in this country.

Evidence obtained by CBC News suggests Consul Semere Ghebremariam O. Micael is again soliciting taxes despite a threat by Canada eight months ago not to renew his credentials if he kept at it.

But one Eritrean in Toronto, who has asked not to be identified, tells the CBC it was business as usual just a few weeks later when he had to pay.

Eritrean Child Prisoners Join Hunger Strike in Aswan Prison

Yesterday, a large group of Eritrean prisoners in an Aswan prison concluded a three-day hunger strike, in desperation protesting their continued incarceration without charge or trial. They were joined by some of the young children incarcerated with their mothers in the prison. The Government of Egypt has apparently accepted that they are victims of human trafficking, brought into Egypt against their will, yet they are not being released after many months. The prisoners report poor conditions in the prison, and a lack of food and access to medicine and treatment. ...

Freedom Friday makes over 10,000 Independence Day Calls and distributes flyers in Asmara

(Asmara 16- 05-2013) Freedom Friday Activists in Asmara have started their Independence Day 2013 Campaigned themed, From Here to Dignity, by distributing hundreds of high definition glossy posters depicting the Eritrean Tragedy and calling on all Eritreans to play their role in putting a stop to these. The flyers with the word ‘Enough!’ written in bold across the middle were distributed in the centre of Asmara as well as some of the outskirt regions.

The Disappearance of Sudan

In this context, the renewal of Sudanese citizenship is vital if further rupture between the Sudanese peoples and, ultimately, the further physical disintegration of the state, are to be avoided.

However, and as the report contends, this renewal can only be achieved by ending the violence that is currently targeted overwhelmingly at marginalised communities; transforming practice, policy and law around the construction of a genuinely non-discriminatory and fully participatory Sudanese citizenship; and committing to the creation of an all-Sudan political and constitutional process that allows grievances and programmes for change from the margins to be heard and heeded.

Escape From An Eritrean Prison

Eritrea's human rights record has long faced international criticism. Located in the Horn of Africa, the country is home to five million people, but so closed to the outside world that individual stories tend to come almost exclusively from those who have fled.

Kidane Isaac was just 18 when he says Eritrean authorities arrested him for an unspecified crime. It's possible he was suspected of planning to desert military service. Thousands of Eritreans flee the country every month, many of them teenagers, to escape the

Eritrean Charity to Extend Assistance to Victims of Trafficking

(London 17th May 2013) Release Eritrea is to extend its support to victims of trafficking through two projects in Egypt and Israel respectively. The projects which have been funded for three years starting this month will build on the work that was carried out over the last two years enabling local staff and volunteers to provide relevant services as identified by those already engaged in the field.

Eritrean Youth Solidarity for Change (EYSC) Launches New Television Program: EYSC TV

EYSC (15-05-2013): The Eritrean Youth Solidarity for Change - Global Group - announced today the launch of its new television program, EYSC TV.

The television program, which will air twice a month beginning on Wednesday May 22nd at 7:33 PM Berlin time, covers over half a million households in the Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Darmstadt areas in Germany and will be accessible world-wide at the same time via YouTube or via the distribution links of the TV studio. EYSC ensures interested viewers that it will publish the programme simultaneously to the TV broadcast on EYSC Facebook and in YouTube.

DEMONSTRATION FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE IN ERITREA

Date: 24 May 2013- Time: 2:00PM – 6:00PM -Venue: in Front of 10 Downing Street

The Coordinating Committee representing the different exiled opposition political and civil society organizations in London calls on all Eritreans and the friends of Eritrea to participate in the Pro-democracy Peaceful Demonstration.

ENDF Mourns Former Colleague and Compatriot, Amare Gebremariam

It is with deep sadness that the Coordination Committee of the Eritrean National Democratic Forces (ENDF) learned the passing away on 12 May 2013 of compatriot Amare Gebremariam at the age of 70.

The late Amare Gebremariam was one of the founding members of ENDF which he served also for one year as its active vice-chairman actively supporting the ENDF chairman, Diplomat Humad Kullu.

With Robocalls, Eritrean Exiles Organize Passive Resistance

From his perch in California, Sium tries to stay politically connected to his country. He marches when there's a local demonstration, contributes to refugee causes and posts on Facebook.

But there's always one thing missing. The people inside Eritrea don't dare to "like" his Facebook posts. And they never march in the streets themselves. For Eritrean activists living abroad, this silence can be frustrating.

So Sium had an idea: If we can't ask them to come out, what if we ask them to stay home?

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