The migration crisis in Europe has put Eritrea in the spotlight. Last year, more people fled to Europe from this small, secretive country than any other African country. The BBC’s Mary Harper was granted rare access.
One of the first people I meet in Eritrea is a young woman who tells me she has never visited her country before.
His family fled during Ethiopia’s 30-year war of independence.
She was born in a refugee camp in Sudan and her family was later granted asylum in the United States.
“I decided to come here to stay.
“I work in a hospital. The Eritrea I live in is not the one I hear about on the news.”
Over cappuccinos and delicately iced cakes in cafes in the capital, Asmara, I meet a few others like her – highly educated Eritreans who have chosen to return from abroad to live and work, both in government institutions and in private companies.
I am free to talk to whoever I want and no government guards accompany me.
There is a strong coffee culture in Eritrea
Some old people came to retire.
I visit an old man in an elegant villa, splashed in pinks and purples with bougainvillea flowers, in what was Asmara’s “European Quarter” during the Italian colonial era.
An elderly woman who lived in Germany lives in a much simpler house.
Like many Eritreans, she likes to walk in the evening along the city’s wide avenues, lined with date palm trees.
Thousands more come to Eritrea for their vacations. They are known as “summer butterflies”.
Mary Harper reports: “While there are positive signs with increasing international investment, particularly in the mining sector, life is tough for many. »
This is not what I expected.
Human rights groups, the Eritrean opposition and the media often portray Eritrea as a terrifying country that everyone wants to flee, and which is rapidly emptying of its youth.
Not everything is simple for those who come and go. Rights groups say a 2% “diaspora tax” is a way to control Eritreans living abroad. They claim that only those who pay receive visas and have access to other consular services.
Automatic asylum
Members of the diaspora have foreign passports so they can leave whenever they want.
People with Eritrean passports cannot legally leave without an exit visa, which is difficult to obtain. Many of them leave illegally, crossing the border and risking their lives in the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea before reaching Europe.
Human rights groups say they are fleeing due to forced indefinite conscription, slavery, torture and mass imprisonment, sometimes in underground containers.
Such reports have helped Eritreans gain asylum almost automatically in many European countries, although steps are being taken to make this more difficult.
Eritreans on the move
- In 2015, more Eritreans crossed the central Mediterranean illegally than any other nationality.
- They represented 25% of the total migrants on this route in 2015.
- In 2011, 659 Eritreans were recorded on this route. By 2015, this figure had increased to 38,791.
Source: Frontex: (European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union)
A United Nations-appointed commission of inquiry says “crimes against humanity have been committed in a widespread and systematic manner” over the past 25 years.
These allegations are denied by the Eritrean government and described as “laughable” by its head of political affairs, Yemane Gebreab.
“There is no basis for these claims. Anyone who knows anything about Eritrea, including European governments, will tell you it is rubbish.”
Western diplomats and others based in Asmara tell me that the commission of inquiry’s report is “useless” and does not accurately reflect the current situation in Eritrea.
They say the country is authoritarian, but call descriptions in the media and elsewhere of Eritrea as “the North Korea of Africa” ”absurd.”
An international human rights advocate I meet outside the country says that about 30 percent of people who claim to be Eritrean for asylum purposes are actually from Ethiopia.
I am told that others are Sudanese.
Some Ethiopians and Sudanese share languages, physical characteristics, and cultures with Eritreans, and it is much easier to obtain asylum as an Eritrean.
In spice markets, on steep terraced hills and in orderly queues for red buses, I meet Eritreans who want to leave.
Many say they feel trapped in national service, which they must commit to once they finish their studies.
Human rights groups say some Eritreans are being forced into indefinite national service
The majority are given civilian tasks, such as teaching or working in a ministry.
They say they have little or no choice over what role they are assigned or what part of the country they are sent to.
The worst thing, they say, is that they have no idea how long their national service will last.
I meet men who have served for nine, ten, twelve years.
Officials tell me that national service is essential because Eritrea is in a state of “no war, no peace” with its giant neighbor, Ethiopia, against whom it fought a still unresolved border war from 1998 to 2000.
Others have different reasons for wanting to leave.
Many complain about the economy.
Some wish to join family members or dream of continuing their studies.
“I want to study engineering in the United States,” says one woman.
Students in their final year of school undergo military training as well as academic work
Some seem attracted by the glossy images of the West that they see on the dozens of television channels available.
Satellite dishes are like a disease in Eritrea; they are scattered on the roofs of houses in poor urban areas, on huts in villages.
I meet a group of young people determined to stay and push for reforms from within.
“We need change and we will try to fight from within,” one of them told me. “I want to be free”.
Another says: “We are afraid of our government. There are spies everywhere and we don’t know who they are.”
Lose your youth
Others tell me they love Eritrea and want to contribute to the development of their 25-year-old country.
“Eritrea is criticized for having no democracy, no parliament, no constitution, no independent media,” says a young man in a late-night bar, sipping local Asmara beer straight from the brown bottle at the thick glass.
“But what good are elections in Africa? They lead to ethnic divisions and violence.”
Many supplement the low salary of national service by working in other jobs.
Some only have to do their national service work in the afternoon or two days a week.
The rest of their time, they work in stores, as taxi drivers, for foreign embassies and private factories.
The government is increasing the amount of money people receive while serving.
“We want young people to stay,” says Mr. Yemane. “Eritrea is doing everything it can to create opportunities for them, like free education.”
In a recent speech, President Isaias Afwerki said the West was deliberately trying to weaken Eritrea by encouraging people to leave through its generous asylum policies.
Dressed in khaki, this tall, tough man with a big bushy black mustache said the West was sabotaging the economy, “with the aim of creating poverty and famine to cause the crisis.”
But today, after years of international isolation, Eritrea and the outside world are slowly opening up to each other.
Eritrean president says generous Western asylum policies are weakening the country
Eritrea is making more and more friends in the Arab world.
This is partly due to the war in neighboring Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is fighting Houthi rebels.
Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed told me that one coalition member, the United Arab Emirates, was using “logistics facilities at the port and airport” in the town of Assab, in the south of the country.
The migration crisis has also served as a catalyst for closer engagement, this time with Europe. Eritrea does not want to lose its youth and Europe would prefer that they not come knocking on its door.
