Home / News / Why Eritreans risk their lives to flee – refugees tell a different tale

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 of July 2014, and their number is only rising with time.

But while the number represents a significant exodus out of the country – whose population is only some 6 million – the country’s government is adamant that there is no human rights problem in the country.

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In comments made to The Malta Independent, which were reproduced in yesterday’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday, Eritrea’s ambassador to France Hanna Simon argued that Eritrean refugees – and other East Africans claiming to be Eritrean – were making up “the same story” of persecution to a sympathetic audience, simply to migrate for economic reasons.
Inevitably, the Eritrean asylum seekers who spoke to The Malta Independent strongly contested her claims. As it happens, so do international human rights organisations and United Nations institutions.

A brief history of a young country

Eritrea’s present borders date back to the 19th century, when areas controlled by the Ottoman Empire, the Ethiopian empire and various independent states were consolidated into an Italian colony.
The British took over the territory during World War II before the territory was joined with Ethiopia.
But a war for independence began in 1961, and it would last for 30 years before the fall of the Derg regime in Ethiopia helped pave the way to independence.
The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front leading the struggle, led by Isaias Afewerki, led a transitional government, ostensibly to help prepare for democratic elections: in 1994, it transformed itself into a political party called the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice.
But a general election scheduled for 1995 was first postponed by six years, and subsequently postponed indefinitely: no elections have taken place, and the PFDJ remains the only legal political party in the country.
The country is routinely described as one of the most repressive regimes – it has been ranked last in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index for the past few years, and the most heavily censored country in the world by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Adding insult to injury – and also spurring many Eritreans to escape – is a harsh national service every able-bodied adult is obliged to take part in.

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Years of virtual slavery

Conscription, of course, is not unusual across the world, or even in Europe: countries with a period of compulsory national service include Austria, Switzerland and Greece. But those conscripted typically serve for a fixed, relatively short, period.
Ostensibly, this is also the case in Eritrea, where the maximum period of national service is set at 18 months.
But in practice, Eritreans end up serving for much longer periods of time, under conditions that are often comparable to slavery.
Abraham (not his real name), who spoke to The Malta Independent on condition of anonymity to avoid any possible reprisals on his family back home, is a middle-aged father of nine who fled his homeland in 2012.
He explains that he started his national service in 1999. Thirteen years later, when he finally fled, there was no indication that he would be sent back home.
The brief interview took place through an interpreter who, as it happens, also fled Eritrea after being conscripted.
Yonas, a 29-year-old who presently operates Selam, a Ħamrun bar and restaurant serving East African cuisine, had fled Eritrea in 2003.
He was still an underage student when he was forced to terminate his studies and join the national service.
Ill-treatment of conscripts is rife within the national service: one particular incident had spurred Yonas to leave.
He was being made to work in the afternoon of a hot summer day – average temperatures in a sizeable proportion of Eritrea are among the hottest on the planet – but despite working in such conditions for hours on end, he and his fellow conscripts were not being given any water.
So at some point, unable to bear the heat and the thirst any longer, he asks his commanding officer for water, only to be punched for his trouble. His eardrum was ruptured in the incident, so severely that surgery was required to fix it – an operation that only took place in Malta years later.
“After that happened, I thought to myself that I don’t have anyone to take care of, and that is why I left,” he adds.
In her comments, Ambassador Simon had acknowledged that the national service was driving Eritreans to flee, but insisted that it was necessary, and that the country had the right to prolong it as it saw fit.
But both Yonas and Abraham question the necessity of a national service which, for the most part, translates into forced labour: conscripts receive payment, but barely enough to survive on, let alone maintain their families.
Abraham, for instance, points out that during his time in the national service; he often carried out work in the homes of powerful persons, which could hardly be described as a national priority.
Yonas makes a different argument, questioning whether a system that was contributing to such a significant exodus could be deemed beneficial to the country.

No speaking up

Both men also highlight a culture of repression in their home country, with Abraham noting that is afraid that speaking to his family back home would cause them to suffer repercussions. Their home has already been confiscated by the government.
He recounts that one is always afraid of talking about politics or criticising the government in any way, fearing the authorities would be informed and the possibility of arbitrary arrest in a country where thousands are believed to be political prisoners.
“That is why underage students run away; the country is not free, and you are not even free to study because of the government’s actions,” Yonas highlights, recounting his own experience.
As it happens, an Eritrean who had suffered arbitrary detention had spoken to The Malta Independent during the summer of 2013, when journalists were invited to visit Malta’s detention centres. Filmon had been a history student at university, but ended up arrested as he and other students were involved in a protest.
That asylum seekers risk their lives when they cross the Mediterranean on rickety boats is well known, but when it comes to Eritrean refugees, the risk of death presents itself at the very first step.
As confirmed by UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Eritrea Sheila Keetharuth, Eritrea employs a shoot-to-kill policy on civilians trying to flee the nation.
This does not deter thousands of Eritreans from fleeing the country every year, even though reports of civilians shot at the border surface from time to time, including the apparent killing of 13 children seeking to enter Sudan last September.
Others risk being sent back along the way, including hundreds of Eritreans who had come to Malta and who were deported in late 2002. A report published by human rights organisation Amnesty International had said that these were among those who faced torture and punishment on their return, citing accounts by some who managed to flee once more.
Abraham is adamant that returning to Eritrea is not an option given the present circumstances.

“They will kill me,” he insists.

 

Source: The Malta Independent

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