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 »Why Eritreans risk their lives to flee – refugees tell a different tale
John Cordina Hundreds of Eritreans have come to Malta and obtained humanitarian protection over the past few years, although they only comprise a small minority of the hundreds of thousands who have fled the country. According to the UNHCR, there were over 320,000 Eritrean refugees scattered across the globe as …
Read More »From Eritrea to Bolzano: The trapped migrants who can’t get out of Italy
In the Alps, the last major town before Austria is a purgatory for those headed north Five Eritrean youths race down the platform. They’ve avoided the 15 or so Italian police and Carabinieri officers who are there to stop them climbing aboard. But inside the final express carriage, a huge …
Read More »Rebel group says Sudan “failed” to protect Eritrean refugees
ADDIS ABABA – An Eritrean opposition group on Sunday accused the Sudanese government of failing to provide enough protection to Eritrean refugees who are subjected to abductions by criminal gangs from in and around Shagarab refugee camp in Eastern Sudan. Young Eritrean refugees in Sudan who have fled persecution in …
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 »UN Report Alleges Forced Labor at Canadian-Owned Mine in Eritrea
By Hilary Beaumont A UN report on human rights abuses in Eritrea has unearthed new allegations of forced labor at a Canadian-owned mining company. According to the report, released this week, some of the most atrocious human rights violations are happening in Eritrea, an east-African nation that’s been compared to …
Read More »ERITREA – LAST IN THE WORLD PRESS FREEDOM INDEX FOR THE PAST EIGHT YEARS
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) hails this week’s report by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea. Released on 8 June, the report says some of the human rights violations by President Issayas Afeworki’s government, which include the arbitrary detention of journalists, may constitute crimes against humanity. Although …
Read More »Tighter border controls block Eritrean migrants in Italian Alps
By Steve Scherer BOLZANO, Italy May 29 (Reuters) – Some 200 mostly Eritrean migrants heading northwards from Italy were turned back by police in the Italian Alps on Friday and left sleeping in train stations as European countries tightened frontier checks before a global summit in Germany. EU countries are …
Read More »Eritrea says rights activists to blame for migrant crisis
Addis Ababa (AFP) – The secretive Horn of Africa state of Eritrea claimed Monday that human rights activists were partly to blame for the hordes of migrants heading to Europe. The isolationist Red Sea dictatorship is one of the largest contributors to the exodus across the Mediterranean and has in …
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. …
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