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Abinet spent six years completing her national service in one of Eritrea’s ministries, but when she joined a banned Pentecostal church, she was arrested, interrogated, threatened, released and then shadowed in a clumsy attempt to identify other congregants. She arranged to be smuggled out of the country in 2013 and is now in a graduate programme in human rights in Oslo.

Like Abinet, hundreds of Eritrean asylum seekers are landing on the shores of Italy. Eritreans are second only to Syrians in the number of boat arrivals, though the country is a fraction of Syria’s size and there’s no live civil war there.

Many Eritreans are feared to have drowned in Sunday’s shipwreck in the Mediterranean, from which the death toll could reach 950, with more migrant vessels reported in distress on Monday – the weekend’s incident has caused EU ministers to hold emergency talks on the growing migration crisis.

The reason most Eritreans cite for leaving is conscription for national service of indefinite duration, with pay so low their parents have to subsidise them.

There were other reasons I heard during the hundreds of interviews I conducted over the past year with Eritrean refugees in North America, Europe, Israel, Africa and Central America.

Refugees cited unrelenting abuse and humiliation, constant threat of imprisonment or torture for offending someone in authority, often without even realising how they had done this, or for abetting someone else’s escape or practising a banned religious faith.

The EU and a number of its member states are responding to this crisis by offering aid to Eritrea with the aim of reinvigorating its stagnant economy based on unofficial assurances that national service will be scaled back in the future. But they are missing an essential point: the crushing repression of Eritrea’s citizens, especially its youth, is as much a driver of the outflow of people as the lack of economic prospects. Nor are they separate, as the economy is almost completely dominated by the state and ruling party. Money alone will not change this.

However, despite the country’s belligerent behaviour in the region and its egregious human rights record, which have long left it isolated, there is an opportunity for engagement given that prominent regime officials have indicated a willingness to reform.

But if the EU and individual states jump too rashly and simply throw money at Eritrea, they risk entrenching the very practices that lie behind much of the exodus, while doing precious little to stem it.

Eritrea is dominated by its self-appointed president, Isaias Afwerki. He has surrounded himself with weak institutions, and there is no viable successor. Although the three branches of government – cabinet, national assembly and high court – provide a facade of institutional governance, real power is exercised through informal networks that shift and change at the president’s discretion. Theassembly has not met in a decade, and there is no published national budget. Every important decision is made in secret.

Under these circumstances, taking private pledges of reform at face value is a risky proposition. As a minimum, a date for an end to the practice of indefinite national service should be announced, along with a plan for a rolling demobilisation of those who have already served longer than the 18 months designated when the programme was set up in the 1990s.

Making this public would make it difficult – not impossible, but harder – for the government to renege on a promise it is quietly making to visiting delegations but not telling its own conscripts. Given President Afwerki’s unbending resistance to such moves in the past, there is reason to be sceptical. Such an announcement would be likely to slow the migration rate of those in military service, and preparing to be called up for it, but more is needed to stem the flow.

When I’ve asked refugees, especially recent arrivals, what it would take to get them to go back, there are two things they mention right away: the release of political prisoners, including those jailed for their religious convictions, and the implementation of the constitution, which was ratified in 1997 but has sat on a shelf in the president’s office ever since. It is deeply flawed and needs revision, but it would be a start.

Many also talk about the need for basic freedoms – of press, of speech, of movement, of religion – but the rule of law tops the list, as everyone wants to know what the rules are and that those in power have to play by them, too. Without this, few are likely to take promises of reform seriously.

Those policymakers in other countries inclined to re-engage with this regime and offer aid need to use this opportunity to demand hard evidence that change is coming and that it’s more than cosmetic.

There are more steps needed to ensure that Eritrea is really on a path from dictatorship to some form of nascent democracy with increased transparency in state affairs, reform of the deeply flawed judicial and penal system, and the nurturing of a political culture in which stable political institutions can take root.

Eritrea also needs a structured process of truth and reconciliation to give people back their history and start a process of healing on which this once promising new nation can build a future. And there has to be movement toward normalising relations with its neighbours, including Ethiopia. But one step at a time.

One thing is certain: if the wrong steps are taken at the outset – or false hope is raised and no steps taken – what little hope still flickers within the younger generation inside Eritrea will be further dimmed, more will flee, and it will be much, much harder to convince any of them to go back soon.

• Dan Connell is a visiting researcher at the Boston University African Studies Centre, who has been writing about Eritrea for nearly 40 years

The Guardian

The Iranian leadership is sending two Iranian naval vessels into the military operations zone around Yemen’s waters in a step that could be seen by Saudi Arabia and her allies as provocative and escalatory.

A source within the Saudi MoD told 5 Dimension Consultants in Dubai “that while there is a belief within the MoD that the Iranian navy would not dare provoke a confrontation around Yemen’s waters, the “laws of unintended consequences” however could lead to an accidental confrontation.”

The security forces in Saudi already suspect a pro-Iranian element role in targeting Saudi police officers with frequent shootings, one of which was fatal (April 8). The MoD source added to 5 Dimensions “that they also believe that the Iranian vessels might be a ploy by the Iranians to distract the Saudi led collation from an Iranian clandestine operation to supply al-Houthis with weapons from Eritrea by sea.”

In analysing this 5 Dimensions asked their source what the Saudi MoD view was of the Iranian leaderships understanding of their actions and their intentions?

The reply was “the Iranian leadership continues to underestimate the resolve of the new Saudi leadership and still believes that the policies of the past decade apply, an attitude that it both misguided as well as dangerous.”

The 5 Dimensions team analyzing this believe “the Saudis appear to be determined to achieve their goals in Yemen despite the cost and without much regard for the consequences, as far as Iran is concerned. The fear is that the “law of unintended consequences” might ignite an accidental confrontation in the waters of Yemen that cannot be easily contained.”

They identified that the American and French navies are sending vessels to the area, with the probable intent of de-escalating any situation and added “However, the possibility of a clandestine military supply missions by the Iranians covered by a naval deployment could result in accidents that increase the likelihood of an escalatory event. Something that neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia desires.”

5 Dimension Consultants are experts in regional political and security matters and advise Security Media Publishing amongst others.

It criticized Eritrea-report was rejected by the Immigration Service, but now it is used in the UK.

The criticism of the Danish Eritrea-report was violent, but now the UK authorities have just published two new guides heavily inspired by the controversial report by the Danish Immigration Service.

Denmark helps to paint a misleading picture of Eritrea, which ultimately can establish a trend in which Europe sends thousands of Eritrean asylum seekers back to the dictatorship, they fled.

How is the criticism from international experts, writes Berlingske.

Report mentioned 48 times

The British Standards, the Danish report’s conclusions as basic structure, and the report mentioned at least 48 times in the two reports.

– The Danish conclusions circulating in the international public, and they are used as source basis to verify claims in fact not at all evidence says Kjetil Tronvoll, Norwegian professor and renowned for his knowledge of Eritrea, told the newspaper.

The two British reports are instructions on how asylum cases from Eritrea to be treated. They are about defining the Eritrean national service, which according to the UN is unspecified slave labor and associated with abuse.

Tightening off the table

By downplaying the consequences of illegal exit and evasion of military service, the UK authorities with a snap cutting off most of the massive influx of refugees, it said.

The Danish report was originally the basis for a new, tighter policies towards refugees from Eritrea, but after intense international criticism of the report, and after two key officials denounced it, was tightening off the table.

Immigration has read the British reports and state that they are part of the basis for asylum case. Today is as good as all candidates Eritrean asylum in Denmark.

Justice Minister Mette Frederiksen (S) did not wish to comment to Berlingske.

Eritrean Foreign Ministry has refused claims that alleged Iranian support to Houthis group was being channeled through the Horn of Africa nation.

Nevsun Resources Ltd. is describing an attack on its Bisha mine in Eritrea as an “ act of vandalism,” an account that contrasts starkly with African media reports saying the mine was bombed by Ethiopan fighter jets.

In a statement released Sunday, Nevsun said vandals caused minor damage to the base of a tailings thickener at the mine during the night shift on Friday, releasing water into the plant area.

But the Ethiopian news site Tigrai Online said it had confirmed a report that the Ethiopian air force bombed the mine on Friday. Sudanese newspaper Al-Sahafa was the first to report that the attack was a military operation from Ethiopia.

“The Bisha gold mine which is about 150 km from the city of Asmara is on fire and a huge fire and smoke can be seen from far away,” the reports claimed.

By: Financial Post