Awate Fearless News, Opinion, Analysis On Eritrea And Beyond

After his last trip to Qatar in April 2013, the Eritrean president, Isaias Afwerki, arrived today in Doha, Qatar. Since his visit last year, a follow up trip had been postponed three times by the Qataris. Unlike other heads of states, Isaias was not received at the airport by the Emir of Qatar but by…

The Eritrean opposition organizations including the Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA), which has been shedding member organizations since 2011, have agreed to come under one umbrella. Since August 2013, the opposition groups were engaged in discussion in a dialogue forum created for the purpose. On January 29, 2014 the EDA issued an initiative calling for an…

Sudan’s president, Omar Al-Bashir, is the closest and, probably, the only friend that the Eritrean president, Isaias Afwerki, has. The leaders of the neighboring states, both shunned by regional and international governments, find solace in each other’s company. Now, according to our diplomatic sources in Sudan, Al-Bashir’s long-standing proposal to normalize relations between Eritrea and…

Eritreans in major cities around the world demonstrated today in front of Israeli embassies and consulates on behalf of all African refugees and asylum seekers. According to one of the organizers, “the demonstration was a grassroots movement that began with an idea to bring awareness of the plight of our people in Tel Aviv.” She…

Eritrean refugees en route to Australia are stranded in Indonesia after their smugglers abandoned them when they learned Australian coast guard had intensified patrol of the seas. The Eritreans, who originated from Ethiopia, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, are mostly youth escaping “National Service”, the mandatory military service which was originally designed as an 18-month service…

In the late afternoon of November 5, Brigadier General Tekle Kifle “Manjus” presided over a meeting to discuss, among other things, the fallout from the youth round-up that was conducted on the weekend of October 26th where, for the first time, it was disclosed that an Ethiopian opposition group based in Eritrea, the Ethiopian People’s…

The Tigray People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM, known by its Tigrinya accornym De.M.H.T.) is one of half a dozen Ethiopian opposition groups stationed in Eritrea whose mission statement appears to have changed from bringing change to Ethiopia to fighting change in Eritrea by being President Isaias Afwerki’s last enforcement unit. Over the weekend, TPDM was dispatched…

Eritrea is a country riddled with extra-judicial killing; disappearance; incommunicado detention; denial of fundamental human rights and indefinite military conscription which is tearing the very fabric of the society, according to Ms. Sheila B. Keetharuth, the UN Special Rapporteur to Eritrea. Her report was made on Thursday to the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (Third…

Last week, Eritrean journalist Mohammed Taha Tewekel was in Djibouti to press Djiboutian authorities to improve the living conditions of Eritrean detainees, prisoners of war (POWs) and refugees. Djiboutian authorities declared that they have dealt with more than 500 Eritreans who were members of the Eritrean military. Out of those, 235 have already been settled…

Following the report of the Somalia-Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG), the United Nations Security Council passed  resolution (2111) on 24 July to relax the arms embargo on Somalia and Eritrea, to extend SEMG’s mandate until November 25, 2014, to “underline” the importance of Eritrea granting access to the SEMG. The UN bases its authority to impose…