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

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. When they told him that he was under extremely critical condition and he was very likely to die if he would not be admitted immediately to the clinic and that retuning him to the underground cell would put his life in danger, the officer’s reply was “Let him die; return him to the underground cell”.  They returned him to the underground cell immediately. The next day, in afternoon, when he was virtually dead, they admitted him to the clinic. He died immediately after he arrived at the clinic.

Torture, Suffering and Imprisonment (Life under PFDJ)

On March 2009, we received a hefty report (about 34 pages long) on the prison condition in Eritrea as experienced by one man. The report was too detailed that we felt that it would endanger the writer, even though he wanted us to post it as was. We have been posting excellent reports by this writer, especially on the state of famine in Eritrea. But when it comes to prison life, we have been posting only those parts that we felt were safe. One such report was a detailed account on the Wi’a concentration camp. Now that writer has made it safely to the free world, we will start publishing what was left out of that prison report in three instalments.

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

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.

Some of the important names floating around are Tewelde Kelati, the Administrator of Zoba Maekel, is appointed to be Minister of Fishery. Kahsai Ghebrehiwet, the Administrator of Gash-Barka, is reshuffled to be the Administrator of Zoba Maekel.

Phone Line to Massawa, Eritrea Disconnected

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.

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.

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.

Eritrean Field Notes: A lonely nation under a glass

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.

Picture from Eritrea: Faith Mission church in Asmara

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

Update on Famine Situation

 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. The shortage of food combined with the very poor sanitation conditions, harsh environmental conditions, fatigue resulting from training exercises and almost non-existent health facilities and health care services in the camp has lead to sustained outbreaks of meningitis, typhoid and scabies resulting in alarming mass deaths.
                    
Most of the deaths are mainly attributed to meningitis. Meningitis has been in the camp even before three years and had killed many but it has never been in this scale before. The death rate increased from June onwards and continued at alarming rate until the camp was closed in September. After hesitating for long, the government has finally decided to close the camp as an emergency measure after many (estimated to be in hundreds) have died. It is difficult to know how many have exactly died but sources from the camp tell that initially 37 people have died in the spot without being transferred to the Gedem military hospital near Massawa. Hundreds were transferred to Gedem hospital but the majority of them have not survived indicating that the death toll is in hundreds.
 

An Assassination Attempt on President Isaias Afewerki

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.

Government of Eritrea making business out of poverty

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: