Two Books on Eritrea

The war in Eritrea is one of the least studied contemporary conflicts. Only the recurrence of massive drought and famine in the region has prompted the cursory media attention now given to this 24-year-old national liberation struggle. These two books add significantly to the sparse literature on th

Lynne Barbee • 2 min read

MER Article

Caught in the Crossfire of Climate and Politics

Conscription into the army or other government service for years on end, fear of detention and torture for real or imagined transgressions with no legal recourse, no prospect of schooling or meaningful work, and no personal freedom: The reasons Afar refugees in eastern Ethiopia gave for fleeing thei

Dan Connell • 12 min read

MER Article

Eritrean Afars

Ahmed, a 25-year old Afar who served eight years in the Eritrean infantry, fled his country in 2006. He went first to Djibouti, and then to neighboring Ethiopia but, finding no work and fearing the risks of crossing the Mediterranean Sea, he went back to his first place of refuge. I met him in Djibo

Dan Connell • 14 min read

MER Article

Eritrean Refugees' Trek Through the Americas

TAPACHULA, MEXICO—It is not hard to find the Eritreans in this low-key town near the Pacific coast a few miles north of the Guatemalan border. They gather on the front steps of the Palafox Hotel with the only other Africans here—Somalis, Ethiopians, a handful of Ghanaians, all of them migrants—or th

Dan Connell • 9 min read

Current Analysis

Crushing Repression of Eritrea's Citizens Is Driving Them Into Migrant Boats

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 cou

Dan Connell • 4 min read

Current Analysis

From Sinai to Lampedusa: An Eritrean Journey

Two human tragedies will forever scar Eritreans’ memories of the past decade, during which hundreds of thousands fled repression and despair in their homeland to seek sanctuary in more open, democratic societies: the brutal kidnapping, torture and ransom of refugees in the Egyptian Sinai and the dro

Dan Connell • 12 min read

MER Article

The Rerouted Trafficking in Eritrean Refugees

When Sheikh Muhammad ‘Ali Hasan ‘Awad learned that nine kidnapped “Africans” -- eight Eritreans and one Ethiopian -- were being beaten, raped and starved in a compound in Sheikh Zuwayd, a Sinai village near the Israeli border, he wasted little time. Firing AK-47s in the air, the sheikh and his Bedou

Dan Connell • 13 min read

MER Article

Refugees, Ransoms and Revolt

Filmon, a 28-year-old computer engineer, fled Eritrea in March 2012 to escape political repression. Several weeks later, he was kidnapped from Sudan’s Shagara refugee camp, taken with a truckload of others to a Bedouin outpost in the Sinai, not far from Egypt’s border with Israel, and ordered to cal

Dan Connell • 13 min read

Current Analysis

Reverse the Exodus from Eritrea

Last week, soldiers in one of Africa’s most closed and repressive nations -- Eritrea -- occupied the country’s Ministry of Information and issued demands. The pattern was a familiar one. News spread quickly that a coup was underway. But feisty little Eritrea, which got its independence from Ethiopi

Dan Connell • 3 min read

MER Article

Escaping Eritrea

Said Ibrahim, 21, orphaned and blind, was making a living as a singer in Adi Quala bars when a member of Eritrea’s national security force claimed one of his songs had “political” content and detained him at the Adi Abieto prison. After a month Said was released, but he was stripped of his monthly d

Dan Connell • 22 min read

MER Article

He Didn't Do It For Them

Michela Wrong, I Didn’t Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation (New York: Harper­ Collins, 2005). When I first encountered Eritrea in 1976, I was deeply impressed with the movement heading up the former Italian colony’s 30-year war for independence from Ethiopia. During those

Dan Connell • 11 min read

Current Analysis

Eritrea-Ethiopia Verdict Due This Week

The Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission set up a year and a half ago to adjudicate a border dispute that left tens of thousands dead and the entire region on edge will issue its verdict on April 13. Both countries have pledged to abide by the outcome.

Dan Connell • 5 min read