On opposite sides of the Red Sea, Yemen spirals deeper into civil war and chaos, while Eritrea accepts foreign cash and commodities for its support in fighting against Yemen’s rogue government. Why then is Eritrea, population 6.3 million, sending tens of thousands more refugees to Europe than Yemen is, population 24.4 million? …
Read More »The Afars: Eritrea’s Forgotten Refugees
The Afars, a tightly knit Muslim minority in one of the most inhospitable corners of Africa, are determined to keep their home and the culture that sustains them. By Dan Connell Thousands of refugees have made their way to eastern Ethiopia across Eritrea’s porous southern borders in recent years. Many …
Read More »African Dictatorship Fuels Migrant Crisis
Thousands flee isolated Eritrea to escape life of conscription and poverty ASMARA, Eritrea—On a cool March evening soon after his 16th birthday, Binyam Abraham waited until his mother and young siblings were sleeping and slipped away to begin the long trek toward Eritrea’s southern border. With his father trapped in …
Read More »END OF THE ROAD: WHAT LIFE IS LIKE AFTER CALAIS
The migrant camps in Calais are all over the news. But what happens to the people who make it to the UK after that dangerous trip – strapped to a speeding train or stuck in the rumbling dark of a lorry? Rhys Cutler works in our refugee service in Kent …
Read More »Eritrea faces societal collapse
By Jean Shaoul 22 June 2015 A United Nations report has exposed the dreadful conditions in Eritrea, located in the Horn of Africa, that have prompted hundreds of thousands to flee the country. By mid-2014, there were nearly 360,000 Eritreans registered as refugees worldwide by the UN, out of a …
Read More »Eritrea faces societal collapse
By Jean Shaoul 22 June 2015 A United Nations report has exposed the dreadful conditions in Eritrea, located in the Horn of Africa, that have prompted hundreds of thousands to flee the country. By mid-2014, there were nearly 360,000 Eritreans registered as refugees worldwide by the UN, out of a …
Read More »The Guardian view on Eritrea: a regime of terror
The EU may be saving lives in the Mediterranean but it is turning a blind eye to the political repression in Africa’s worst dictatorship Europe’s response to the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean has rightly – if belatedly – focused on saving lives. Not a week goes by now without …
Read More »Why thousands of asylum-seekers are fleeing Eritrea and risking their lives in the Mediterranean
We have become accustomed to headlines about migrants in the Mediterranean. Most recently it was reported that the Italian authorities rescued nearly 7,000 migrants off the coast of Libya over one weekend. Often, tragically, we read instead of thousands drowning. Last year more than 170,000 migrants arrived by boat in Italy last year. …
Read More »Mediterranean migrant crisis: why is no one talking about Eritrea?
Sinéad O’Shea In the world’s most censored country, citizens face a stark choice – live in misery or risk death by leaving. But it has no western allies so the situation goes unreported Horror has been expressed at the latest catastrophe in the Mediterranean. Little has been said, however, …
Read More »The Observer view on the human tragedy in the Mediterranean
Europe can’t afford to sit back and do nothing when thousands of migrants are dying every week in search of a new life in Italy and Greece A vast human tragedy is unfolding along the shores of the Mediterranean, its horrors largely ignored by Britain’s inward-looking, election-fixated politicians and an …
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