Mereja.Forum

[Zmeselo]

NSN Cycling Team, was formerly known as 'Israel Premier Tech'.


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General News
A new chapter awaits Biniam Girmay at NSN Cycling Team

https://nsncyclingteam.com/a-new-chapte ... ling-team/

1 December 2025



NSN Cycling Team is proud to confirm the signing of Biniam Girmay on a three-year contract through to 2028.

The 25-year-old Eritrean phenomenon – already a history-maker, Tour de France green jersey and multiple stage winner, and source of inspiration – joins NSN Cycling Team as a marquee rider ahead of a bold new era for the team.

Girmay’s arrival signals NSN’s commitment to winning and to elevating cyclists who inspire audiences far beyond the finish line.

His versatility as a sprinter and classics rider, and natural leadership qualities, will add depth to NSN’s growing roster of young and ambitious riders, says General Manager Kjell Carlström.

We are incredibly excited to welcome Biniam to NSN Cycling Team. Not only will 2026 mark a new chapter for the team, but it also represents one for Biniam and I couldn’t think of a better time to embark on a new chapter together,

says Carlström.

Biniam represents everything we love about cycling. His talent is obvious, but his humility and drive are what make him an extraordinary cyclist. From the first conversation, it was clear he shares our vision both on and off the bike and I have no doubt he will be a fantastic fit and will be a leader of our team, inspiring our riders and the entire cycling community.

In joining NSN Cycling Team, Girmay emphasized the excitement of taking on a new challenge and working with a new sprint train.

I’m really happy to be here, especially with a new atmosphere and a new beginning, for me and for the team,

adds Girmay.

As a rider, I always like to have a good environment, especially inside the team and I already heard a lot of positive things from my new teammates. When I look back at the last two years of the team, the team has improved so much. There is a really good team spirit.

Looking at the team’s sprint train, they were always really strong, especially how they stayed together and motivated each other. I heard them many times during races, motivating each other so much, so I’m really looking forward to working together. I see a great opportunity with NSN Cycling Team and I feel that this is the best thing for my future.

Girmay has a palmarès most cyclists would dream of, with stage victories at the Giro d’Italia and Tour de Suisse among his 16 pro wins to date. However, his eyes remain firmly on the future.

To be honest, I never look back at what I achieved. I always look to the future,

Girmay explains.

I always care what the next step is. What’s done is already done, so I don’t want to look back or be satisfied. I always want to do more. My main objective for the future, because I’m still only 25, is simple – to win bike races. I really love to win at the classics, and, for the moment, I only won Gent – Wevelgem so I still want to achieve more together with the team. I believe one day we can win one of the biggest races in cycling together.

Racing For Change, together

Girmay’s signing doesn’t just reflect NSN Cycling Team’s growing performance ambitions but also adds an exciting new development in the team’s Racing for Change project. With the team’s Field of Dreams bike center in Bugesera, Rwanda, already changing the lives of thousands of youths in the area, Girmay’s arrival lends itself to a possible expansion of the project in Eritrea to contribute to the development of cycling talent.

He says:

In Eritrea, cycling is our culture – it’s in our blood. And as an African rider, I want to develop African cycling. This team already did incredible things. I’m super happy to be part of a team with a big project in Rwanda. For me and the team, it’s a nice combination – an African rider and a team that wants to develop cycling in Africa.

We need people who can give opportunities, bring riders to Europe, or give them the facilities they need. I will give my support from the bottom of my heart to do everything it takes to build Eritrean cycling to the top level and that starts with initiatives like the team’s Racing for Change project. I believe if we create these opportunities, we’ll see more Eritrean and African riders in the biggest races.

[Zmeselo]

Meet the Eritrean American Basketball Coach, Alexander Loul Syum



(By Mike Seium Pele Junior) ― Formerly the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Mt. Hood Community College and now an International Scout for the Eritrea Basketball Association and founder of Flow State Global, Loul Syum is known for his player development, academic guidance, culture-building, and mental performance support rooted in his background as a mental health counselor.

Alongside his consulting work, Coach Loul partners with Eri-International sports to help build an international-standard basketball program for Eritrea.

With deep connections to NBA and NCAA-level coaches, his network and leadership are creating valuable opportunities for Eritrean basketball to grow.

As basketball continues to evolve across Africa, Eritrea’s potential to compete at a high level can become a reality, driven by the skills, resources, and commitment of the diaspora.

Coaches like Alexander Loul and others in the community stand ready to help make that vision a success.

Check out his recent interview on a two-part podcast a popular podcast known as Pro-Insight podcast here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1Vpk1jiXQsYHoZ48U7W6OU

[Zmeselo]

[Zmeselo]

History
Remembering Ona and Besikdira

By Ghidewon Abay Asmerom

https://redseabeacon.com/remembering-ona-and-besikdira/

December 1, 2025



Fifty-five years ago, on November 30 and December 1, 1970, two small Eritrean villages, Besikdira and Ona, were erased from the map by the Ethiopian army of occupation. In barely 48 hours, nearly a thousand civilians, men, women, children, the elderly, were slaughtered. Families disappeared entirely; communities that had stood for centuries ceased to exist. And yet these atrocities, among the worst committed in the Horn of Africa in the twentieth century, remain largely unknown beyond Eritrea’s borders and denied by those who carried them out.

These massacres were not the fog of war. They were policy. They were the logical endpoint of a strategy designed in Addis Ababa, after Haile Selassie declared a state of emergency and vowed to crush Eritrea’s lawful demand for decolonization. The goal was simple and barbaric: destroy the population’s ability to resist Ethiopia’s illegal occupation. By 1967, Ethiopia’s army was conducting scorched-earth campaigns across Eritrea, burning villages, imprisoning and torturing civilians, killing livestock, destroying water sources, and forcing tens of thousands into exile.

Between February and April 1967 alone, Ethiopian soldiers burned 62 villages: Mogoraib, Zamla, Ad Ibrahim, Gerset Gurgur, Adi Bera, Asir, Fori, Ad Habab, to name only a few. Over hundreds of civilians were killed; some 60,000 cattle and camels were slaughtered with knives, gunfire, and flames. Local leaders documented the horrors as they unfolded.

On 11 July 1967, the villages of Eilet and Gumhot were burned, and thirty young men tied together and burned alive in a house. More villages were destroyed in the following days, with 51 civilians and 6,000 animals killed. In November 1967, the Second Ethiopian Army Division destroyed nearly every village in Senhit, 174 in total. In Kuhul and Amadi, soldiers forced residents to assemble and then bombed them from the air.

The events of 1970, unfolded against this backdrop of systematic brutality. When Eritrean fighters ambushed and killed General Teshome Ergetu, the architect of the infamous

burn all, kill all

doctrine, on 21 November 1970, the empire retaliated with a fury meant to terrorize the entire nation.



On 30 November, soldiers entered Besikdira and ordered villagers to divide by religion. The people refused. Christians and Muslims insisted, as always, that they were one community. Their unity was answered with machine-gun fire: they were herded into the mosque and massacred using machine guns through the windows, about 130 people were killed in a matter of minutes. Only a few lived to tell what happened.

The next day, Ona met the same fate. It had become a refuge for those fleeing earlier operations. At dawn, soldiers encircled the village, torched the homes, and gunned down anyone running from the flames. By nightfall, 800-900 civilians were dead. It remains the deadliest single-day massacre in Eritrean history.

These crimes did not occur in isolation. They were two horrific days in a war that lasted 10,858 days—every one of them marked by Ethiopian atrocities against Eritrean civilians. The list of victims and ravaged communities is too long to recite in full. A handful of names convey the scale:

Merara (1965), Rora Bet Gebru (1966), Ad Ibrahim (1967), Emberemi (1967 & 1976), Lalokofta (1967), Hazemo (1967), Aylet-Gemhot (1967), Misyam (1967), Melebso (1967), Gheleb (1970), Kubub Ebena (1971), Ila Berid (1971), Dige Idie Atba (1971), Adi Shuma (1972), Um Hajer (1974), Asmara (1975), Weki Diba (1975), Agordat (1975), Hirgigo (1975 & 1976), Dekemhare (1975), Adi Qeyih (1975), Alalie (1976), Dbarwa (1977), Digsa (1977), Mendefera (1978), Damba (1981), Emba Hara (1983), Asmat (1983), Molqui (1984), Adi Qerets (1985), Ararieb (1985), Mogeraib (1985), Hamertoqo (1987), She’eb (1988), Massawa (1990).



And this list is only the surface of a far deeper, darker ledger. Eritreans carry these memories not as abstractions, but as lived history. The massacre sites have become places of mourning, reflection, and unity, spaces where the message is not revenge, but vigilance. “Never again” is not a slogan in Eritrea; it is a survival ethic.

Meanwhile, few Ethiopians today know what was done in their name during the thirty-year war. Independent researchers estimate that more than 250,000 Eritrean civilians were killed, numbers the Ethiopian state has neither acknowledged nor apologized for. Instead, astonishingly, new generations of Ethiopian leaders once again speak of Eritrean ports and territory as their “birthright,” threatening reoccupation and boasting openly of future conquests, as if the decades of massacres never occurred.

This amnesia, is not innocent. It is political. From 1941 to 1952, Ethiopia armed Andinet shiftas based in Tigray to terrorize Eritreans who demanded independence. After forcing federation in 1952 and dissolving it illegally in 1962, the empire deployed its army to terrorize Eritrean civilians. Villages were bombed with napalm and cluster munitions. Young people were strangled with piano wire. Asmara the capital saw a massacre of nearly 3000 people in a matter of a week of terror, in 1975. Mothers and children were crushed beneath tank treads. Thousands were executed in cold blood. Yet Ethiopian historians like Zewdie Reta later claimed Ethiopia

never harmed a single Eritrean

in forty years of occupation, an assertion so flagrantly false it mocks both truth and humanity and is contradicted by official Ethiopian records.







Today, as some Ethiopian elites again fantasize about Eritrean territory, threaten to “correct” their landlocked status by force, and erase the very history that disproves their claims, Ona and Besikdira stand as a warning. Impunity breeds repetition. When the suffering of one people is denied, the door remains open for others to endure the same fate.

Eritrea’s martyrs of 1970 stood together in life—Muslim and Christian, neighbor and neighbor—and they stand together in memory. Their story must be told, retold, and carried forward not only for their sake, but for the sake of a region still struggling to learn what happens when powerful states believe that forgetting is the same as absolution.

Remembering is not an act of bitterness. It is an act of protection, of truth, of justice.

And it is long overdue.

Those who can read Tigrigna must read the books (ግፍዒ) Gefi, https://hdrimedia.com/product/gfei/ and (ዖናን በስክዲራን፡ ህልቂት ዓድታት ሰንሒት ብነጸረኣብ ኣዛዚ) Unan Beskidran, https://hdrimedia.com/product/ona-and-besik-dira/ those who can read Amharic can read an abbreviated translation of the book Gefi by the Late Tesfaye Gebreab ጃንሆይ እና ደርግ ያልተነገሩ መራር ታሪኮች. https://www.mereb.shop/rs/?prodet=true&pid=46823451

[Misraq]

Zemso

We are not interested. Why are you seeking our attention

[Zmeselo]

You are not even your own voice, let alone others'.

Shut up!

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We are not interested. Why are you seeking our attention

[Temt]

Zemso

We are not interested. Why are you seeking our attention

ኣንታ ቚጥሚ፡ መን ኣዴኻ ኣቕሓ ምስ ቆጸረካ ኢኻ፡ ርኣዩኒ ስምዑኒ ትብል ዘሎኻ፧ ድርባይ ሓተላ! ብኤርትራ ጸወታ የለን፡ያ መኽኑት ዋሒድ።