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It was roughly twelve months after 31-year-old Gebre Berhane (not his real name) escaped Eritrea that the letter came through from the Home Office. He’d already lost 13 years of his life to forced military service and faced the threat of a regime which he says kidnapped his father turning on him. Berhane was sure his request for asylum would be accepted and his nightmare would come to an end.

”The Eritrean government were looking for me because they believed I was contacting foreigners,” he says, explaining the case he put to the British authorities. ”In my extra time I was supplying vegetables to a big company which made them suspicious. When we heard that they were looking for me, I fled. It’s been 15 years since my father was taken by the government. My mum said: ’I don’t want to lose you too, go away from this country’.”

But Berhane’s story wasn’t good enough for the Home Office, at least not at the first time of asking. Last summer, after months waiting for an interview, his asylum claim was rejected. The days he’d spent trapped in a migrant jail in Libya, the hours rocking on a packed boat to Sicily, and the month hopping from truck to truck in Calais – all in the hope of reaching England – appeared to have come to nothing. ”Something came into my mind,” he says, recalling how he felt after reading the rejection. ”If they are planning to take me back home I am planning to make suicide. Imagine you have come all the way and risked everything and they take you back to the Eritrean government – our enemy.”

Left with no other options, Berhane appealed the decision. For six months he waited in G4S-run asylum accommodation in Leeds until good news finally came: a judge had overruled the Home Office and Berhane was being offered asylum. For the first time in months he says he ”felt relaxed”. But with many of his Eritrean friends now going through the same process with the Home Office, an important question remains: why was a vulnerable refugee from the country dubbed ’Africa’s North Korea’ rejected in the first place?

In the past the British government was more than happy to recognise Eritreans – the largest group to claim asylum in the UK in 2015 – as people in need of protection. And for good reason. Since its independence 23 years ago, Eritrea has been ruled by the same president, Isaias Afwerki, in a repressive, one party state accused by Human Rights Watch of ”widespread and systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

But in March 2015 the UK’s position on the country suddenly changed after the Home Office published updated country guidance suggesting a marked improvement in Eritrea’s human rights situation. The acceptance rate for Eritrean refugees promptly plummeted from 84% in 2014 to 44% in 2015.

The source for this controversial change was a report published by the Danish Immigration Service back in November 2014 which claimed forced military service – the main reason people leave the country – was no longer indefinite, and that anybody fleeing without permission would be welcomed back so long as they signed a ”letter of apology” and paid a ”diaspora tax” on the money they had earned while abroad. Human rights groups disagreed, arguing that military service remains compulsory and indefinite, and that returned refugees are at serious risk of persecution. Even the report’s own authors were horrified by what the final version – based largely on anonymous diplomats – said. Two resigned and it was eventually discarded by the Danish government. ”The report was so simplified that it hurt,” one of the authors, Weise Olesen, said.

It is a view that British judges appear to share. Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that from March 2015 – after the changes were introduced – to September 2015, 1,006 out of 1,179 Eritreans rejected by the Home Office decided to appeal. Of the 118 cases in progress under the same time period, 106 were allowed. That’s an appeal success rate of 92%, way above average. Not everyone was so lucky. One hundred and seventy three decided not to lodge appeals, nine were rejected on appeal and 17 were removed back to Eritrea by force – but by and large judges appear to be finding against the government.

”Judges haven’t been able to understand why the Home Office has continued to use the Danish report because there are so many criticisms of it,” says Nathan Stevens, an immigration consultant for Duncan Lewis Solicitors, which has worked on ten cases since the changes came in last year. ”Clearly it doesn’t meet standards that would be required of a report to be accepted as a change in country condition.” Stevens explains that while judges are obliged to take the country guidance into account, existing case law from a 2011 tribunal ruling clearly states that Eritrea is not a safe country. That ruling, he adds, is ”a decision of the court itself”, meaning judges – by the law of precedent – are required to follow it. ”It’s an irrational situation really that judges are being asked to go against precedent.”

On top of the harm caused to the small number who have been sent back to a dictatorship, those left waiting for appeal decisions in the UK are under huge strain. Even with the prospect of a successful appeal, confusion and fear is rife. ”A lot of them attend churches and mosques and they speak to people in the Eritrean community that have been living here for a while,” Stephens says. ”They are completely confused about why, when in their view nothing at all has changed or improved in the country, they suddenly aren’t being granted.”

Another consequence according to Stephens is the amount of time and public money wasted on unnecessary legal procedures. ”It’s really clogged up the tribunal and has delayed everyone else getting to court,” he says. ”You would usually wait a month from lodging an appeal to your hearing but now it’s six. There’s a massive amount of cost on the public purse too given [refugees] could be working if they were granted status.

”They have to have to have an interpreter, which costs money. Judges are obviously paid and the legal aid fee will probably come to £1,000 for each case. It’s completely unnecessary given that everybody has been granted on appeal. It’s just money from the public purse being wasted.”

In January a review into the Home Office country guidance by the Independent Advisory Group on Country of Origin Information (IAGCOI), argued the new guidance was ”completely divorced from relevant objective evidence” and ”totally lacking credibility”. That was after another IAGCOI review published last year which also heavily criticised the Home Office. So why is the department ignoring its critics and persisting with something which appears to be largely failing?

In a statement a Home Office spokesperson said: ”The UK has a proud history of offering asylum to those who need it. All Country Information and Guidance is based on a careful and objective assessment using evidence from a range of sources including media outlets; local, national and international organisations; and information from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. While this guidance helps inform asylum decisions, every application is considered on its individual merits.

”The Home Office issued two responses to the IAGCI-commissioned review of our Eritrea country information and guidance: One questioning the impartiality and objectivity of the review and, as is standard, a more detailed response to the review itself in which we rejected large parts of his recommendations.”

Many disagree. Stuart Crosthwaite, a migrant rights campaigner with South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group, cites two reasons: ”It’s an attempt to stigmatise Eritrean refugees as ’bogus’,” he says. ”A precursor to increased trade deals with the Eritrean government, especially in mining and oil exploration. The former Tory leader Michael Howard seems to be involved in this process”. Stephens believes it acts as significant disincentive for Eritrean asylum seekers regardless of its actual efficacy. ”I think with the Home Office it’s almost a perception thing,” he says. ”They want it to seem like the UK isn’t a good place for Eritreans to try and claim asylum and they are hopeful the numbers will be reduced as a result.”

If this is the goal it is unlikely to succeed, Berhane believes. ”The reason most people are choosing to come to England is the language,” he says. ”I was learning back home in English so it will not take me a long time to be connected to the people.” Though many of his friends in Eritrea and the UK remain uncertain of their future, with his application finally granted Berhane hopes he can now join a college, use those language skills and put the past behind him.

By Philip Kleinfeld

Security forces in Eritrea’s capital Asmara have killed several young conscripts who tried to escape the convoy they were travelling in, according to opposition media outlets.

There were also civilian casualties after some of the recruits’ friends and family used a bus to block the road to help them escape, according to the unconfirmed reports.

Conscription in Eritrea is compulsory.

The Eritrean authorities have not commented on the alleged incident.

Rights groups consider Eritrea to be one of the world’s most repressive states.

In 2015, it ranked bottom of the World Press Freedom Index, published by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Conscription in Eritrea can last for decades and is one of the main reasons tens of thousands flee the country every year.

BBC

A regime of terror. This is described by the UN Eritrea, whose commission of inquiry has openly denounced the practice of crimes against humanity. Often, we see them coming to our shores in boats of death without knowing where and what escaping thousands of people in Africa. Among these desperate people, human beings like us, the High Commission estimated that in 2015 only the Eritrean refugees have reached the figure of 400,000.

There is, unfortunately, little attention on this part of the world around the Horn of Africa where it is consumed, for years now, an unbearable chain of crimes against the state of law and the people. We want to shake the conscience and arouse the attention because this country we care and we want to fight for the restoration, meanwhile, certain minimum conditions of political freedom and civil life completely erased from the absolute and tyrannical power of President Isaias Afewerki. He repeated it recently Renzi. We repeat us again: Africa is our priority and Eritrea is fully part in this action that can and must relate to the European Union. We are raising the issue of a country that, to keep the investigations of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that over 400 thousand Eritreans, equal to 9% of the total population, have fled the country, and every month about five thousand people the abandon. A continuous flight, incessant, largely due to the persistence of serious violations of human rights.

In the European Union, last year, Eritrean asylum seekers have been granted refugee status in 69% of cases, while a further 27% received subsidiary protection. The European Parliament has approved in the last session in Strasbourg, a resolution that is a sort of compendium of the atrocities that are committed in Eritrea. Many, especially young people, cross the border and the regime takes revenge on their families back home by imposing on them a heavy fine, a real extortion. Imposition in violation of UN resolutions ”used to finance armed groups in neighboring countries, destabilizing the region” in doing so.

This is the framework within which takes place the lives of six million and a half inhabitants, the home of the co-signatory of this writing, Don Mussie Zerai, the cleric who since 1995 has lent the work of assistance to all our compatriots who have crossed the Mediterranean towards a European land of salvation and that for this reason it has been proposed for the Nobel.

When it comes to repressive regimes the list of misdeeds is always long and terrible. After the ”presidential” that led to power Isaias Afewerki has been fulfilled a suspension of democratic rights, no application of the Constitution of 1997, replacing the judiciary with Special Courts, starting a mass conscription and lasting for hundreds of thousands of soldiers. A conscription that has been perpetuated over the years and which also covers men of 50-60 years. This structure allows the regime of the president to use the armed forces as well as workers at no cost to public works or caste in power interest. Those who could and can still leave this hell, this prison-State so that the figures say that 7/8 of an Eritrean now lives abroad. He flees from Asmara and surroundings to escape the repression and the economic and social conditions absolutely catastrophic. Eritrea is now one of the world’s poorest countries with a per capita GDP of $ 800 per year, not even $ 70 per month. A good portion of the residents survive on remittances from expatriates, which was one of the most significant items of the national economy affected by the prolonged drought and in general by climate change that could result in a new exodus of refugees from what Human Rights Watch has called one of the most ferocious dictatorships in the world that can boast of, so to speak, well 361 between prisons and detention centers (in Italy, with 60 million inhabitants, there are 205 prisons). In our country landed last year more than 150,000 refugees. 26% of these, amounting to 40 000, are Eritreans, and young age. Escapes those who have more strength and will to fight in the hope of being successful.

The relationship between the EU and Eritrea, is based on a partnership agreement that lasts for years and even on assistance programs for some time but the opposition forces are demanding that Europe and even individual EU countries cease to cultivate the idea that the Afewerki regime can be held good with acts of blandishments in return for an easing of the climate of lawlessness. This is not the road that could lead to a return of civil and democratic normality. The European Parliament called for an end to all violent practices in the field of military service and access to the country of UN experts and the OAU to initiate an investigation of violation of human rights. It is the most important act that you have to play. That essential in carrying on to secure all fundamental rights as well as the same structure of the state affected in the operation and governance practices.

The Parliament, in fact, calls on the government of Asmara restoring a correct and transparent management of public finances, the launch of a true national budget and the autonomy of the central bank, free from military control and free from hazardous trades on terrorist financing in the area. The Habesha Agency also calls for the opening of a peace table between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the two neighboring countries that have been dragging since 1998 in an exhausting war fought on the field but equally deadly.

The end of the clash between Asmara and Addis Ababa could also wipe out the emergency climate and strong current repression in Eritrea justified by the winds of war. The Afewerki regime has, in fact, always motivated prolonged crackdown and the total militarization of the country with the condition continues hostility to Ethiopia. Regarding this aspect very sensitive, on behalf of the Socialists and Democrats Group, I will travel to Ethiopia to invite the Addis Ababa government to work towards a peaceful solution that would stabilize not only the two countries but the whole region Horn of Africa.

CARRYING banners denouncing the regime which drove them from their country, Scotland’s Eritrean community turned out in force at a major rally on Saturday, March 19.

Attended by at least 2,000 people, the Stand Up To Racism event was a show of solidarity with refugees.

Most of the Eritreans present were refugees themselves, with many waiting for their cases to move through the UK asylum system – a system which claims their home nation is safe and improving and advises rejected applicants to return.

Yet figures released last month show Eritreans make up the UK’s largest number of asylum applicants, with 3,729 seeking sanctuary in 2014.

While Syria dominates the political agenda, Amnesty International calls Eritrea the “forgotten refugee crisis”.

Support group, Eritrean Community Residing in Scotland (ECRS), now wants to change that and is asking Scots to back them and put pressure on the Home Office to rewrite its rules on Eritrea – a country of about 6 million, which has been ruled by one man since 1993, where political opposition is banned and, although no war is being fought, military service runs indefinitely.

ECRS chairman Teklom Gebreindrias told The National: “You can’t describe the situation there with human language. People compare Eritrea with North Korea, but it’s worse – it’s the difference from sky to ground.

“Here, healthcare and education are free, in Eritrea — prison is free.”

Tedros Bitsay, 30, arrived in the UK from Calais in December 2014, one of 10 people who stowed away on a lorry. The driver found them at Leicester and called the police.

After a three-day stay in Yarl’s Wood detention centre, the former science student was moved to the now-demolished Red Road Flats in Glasgow.

Asylum seekers were the last inhabitants of the controversial high rises and Bitsay has now been placed in Easterhouse, where he has found a volunteering role.

“I like it” he said. “Some people see you from afar and they think ‘is he bad, is he strange?’ but when they know you, they like you.

“We don’t want trouble, we are looking for peace.“

Bitsay’s first detention lasted two years without communications with his family. After release, he was sent for a year’s military training in what he calls the “worst place” in the country.

Even so, he says life in the UK asylum system feels like another detention. “I’ve been waiting without any feedback for 14 months,” he said. “I have to live, I have to make a family and all the things people want.

“I love my mum, I love my country, but I choose to die here. I cannot go back.”

Humed Saleh Idris was 14 when he was taken into the military for armed training. He spent seven years in the army and was sent home to become a security agent, monitoring members of the public and carrying out arrests for the authorities. When he said no, he knew he would have to leave the country.

Idris was a newly-wed at the time, saying goodbye to his wife after their honeymoon. “It was simply the toughest decision I have had to make,” he said, “but I was at risk.

“If you reject anything the government asks you to do, you end up in detention.”

President Isaias Afwerki’s regime is accused of using arbitrary arrest and detention without charge to tackle any and all forms of dissent. Conditions breach international standards, with underground cells or metal shipping containers used to hold detainees.

Many are exposed to extreme temperatures in desert regions, and torture and other forms of ill-treatment are said to be common.

Idris, whose ordeal began when he was just a child, now aspires to become a news photographer and learn to drive, but his real ambition is simpler. “I want a life free from fear,” he said.

Daniel Kbrom has just days until a crucial hearing, which could determine his future in the UK. An estimated 5,000 people currently make it out of Eritrea every month and more unaccompanied child asylum seekers in the UK hail from there than anywhere else, a situation Kbrom calls “horrifying”.

“Eritrea is becoming impotent,” he said. “It’s a big brain drain and the country is losing all its human resources. It’s very saddening to see children unaccompanied in a country where they know nothing. To make matters worse, these children back home have no hope, no vision, no future.”

Kbrom was suspected of planning an unauthorised border crossing before he even considered it. An agricultural student in government-owned farmland near the border, he was talking with coursemates without permission when officials believed they were planning to take their chance against a shoot-on-site border policy.

After three months, they were released on the condition they guard the farmland, but Kbrom said he could not do the job, so had to leave.

“I want to live a decent life.”

In the first quarter of 2015, the refusal rate for Eriteans went from 14 per cent to 66 per cent after the UK Home Office updated its guidance after the UN dismissed a report. Officials say every case is taken on its own merits.

Eritea is considered to be one of the most secretive states in the world. But in a bid to rehabilitate its repressive image, the country has recently begun opening up to journalists. FRANCE 24 reports on the mass exodus of Eritreans every month.

It’s a country so secretive it’s been dubbed the ”North Korea of Africa”. Eritrea has been ruled by the same president since independence in 1993, there is only one political party and there is no free press.

Some 5,000 Eritreans flee the country every month, according to the UN, meaning Eritrea contributes more migrants to Europe than any other African country.

Few foreign journalists visit the country and visas are hard to come by. But in a bid to rehabilitate its image, the country has recently been opening up to journalists.

FRANCE 24 correspondents Nicolas Germain and Romeo Langlois give us a rare look inside the secretive East African country.

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