Mereja.Forum

JULY 11, 2021 ERITREA HUB

The plight of Eritrean refugees

By Mike Slotznick[1] Introduction

Within weeks after the start of the war in Tigray, Eritrean troops began invading United Nations-supported camps that sustained Eritrean refugees there. The camps, situated just inside the Ethiopian border, housed nearly 100,000 Eritreans who had fled the brutal Eritrean regime. The troops killed some of the refugees, obliterated two of the four camps, and forced several thousand refugees back into Eritrea, where they faced conscription into the invading army, or imprisonment and torture for having initially fled their home country. Eritrean refugees elsewhere in Ethiopia, particularly in the capital city Addis Ababa, also became subject to abduction. Armed Tigrayan actors also attacked some of the refugees in the camps. All of those activities constitute violations of international law.[2]

The atrocities committed against the Eritrean refugees occurred contemporaneously with those committed against Tigrayans and others. In many ways they were all of a piece, reflecting the overall ascendance of violence, demolition of societal order and erasure of human dignity. The author does not compare them, one to the next. Rather, he has attempted in this chapter to narrow his topic to its title.

8.1 Who are the refugees, and why are they in Ethiopia?
 
Eritrea is one of the most repressive countries on earth. It is widely referred to as “the North Korea of Africa” – due to its hermetic isolation, and to the government’s brutalization and enslavement of its own people, even as they suffer from malnourishment and destitution. Major human rights organizations have amply documented those conditions. In 2016 a United Nations investigatory panel – the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea (COI) –accused the ruling regime of crimes against humanity.[3] But the regime has been impervious to its widespread condemnation, and the abuses have continued.

There has been no census of Eritrea in modern times, so there is no authoritative figure for its population. The Eritrean government provided an estimate of 3.65 million in 2015.[4] By contrast, the CIA estimate for 2021 is a population of 6.15 million.[5] Either way, it is extraordinary that by 2018 some 500,000 Eritreans had fled to other lands, including to the Tigray region of Ethiopia.[6]

To explain the flight, we should first describe its causes.

Crimes against humanity.