Compulsory Service in Eritrea: The President’s Psychological Shadows and Major National Tasks

Authored by: Abdu Fagir posted by awatestaff

On July 12, 2025, the graduation ceremony for the 37th batch of national service was held at the famous Sawa military camp. As usual, the ceremony was attended by Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, who has attended all previous graduations, senior government officials, leaders of the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), military commanders, other government officials, parents, and invited guests. In what follows, we examine Eritrean compulsory national service and how it has been influenced by the president’s psychological shadows. This study examines the historical narrative, the development of the service, and its humanitarian and economic impact on the people. This study will draw on reliable sources such as UN reports, academic studies, and leaked government data. As an introduction, we will provide several insights into the Eritrean president, attempting to link his psychological behaviour regarding the establishment of the national service project with the major national tasks expected of it.

An Attempt to Discover Isaias’s Condition

The first considerations we can begin with in this attempt are his year and place of birth. In 1946, in the city of Asmara, Isaias was born, and the country was being subjected to a conspiracy of forced annexation to Ethiopia under the guise of federalism, a fragile formula for forging a purely Eritrean identity without ambiguity. In this murky environment, he learned that his father was a government employee for the Ethiopian colonizer, which plunged him into a violent psychological struggle between betraying his father and honoring him. Furthermore, life was not kind to him with some balance, and in this situation, he was sent to receive education in Catholic missions, which exacerbated his psychological complexes and made him view the world with a profound spiritual duality: sanctifying suffering as a path to salvation, and rejecting compromise as a form of betrayal—that is, viewing life in two ways, with no third.

The second shift is Isaias’s joining the Eritrean Liberation Front and later founding the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front. In both phases, Isaias, burdened by a vague identity, his perception of his father as a traitor, and the spiritual duality he acquired as a Catholic missionary saint, was engaged in a form of self-purification, not simply a struggle to liberate the land. This explains his subsequent actions, separating himself from the scene after his brutality toward his internal rivals and opponents with the same brutality he had meted out to the Ethiopian occupier.

The third shift is the day he entered Asmara, liberating it from Ethiopian colonialism in 1991. As the liberation leader, he was expected to create a free state after it had achieved independence. Instead, he chose to flee from freedom and became an obsessive guardian of his isolated fortress (a psychological fortress), building the most closed regime in the world. This was not a political choice for Eritreans, but rather the embodiment of Isaias’s complex psychological makeup. The totalitarian regime he built provided him with a sense of complete control over everything. One of the tools for this was the long-term military service system, which was by no means a purely military tool, but rather a psychological mechanism that transformed the entire society into a standing army to perpetuate his state of psychological emergency.

The fourth shift was when he exercised power. Since he announced himself as the interim president of the newly born state of Eritrea, he refrained from naming a deputy to replace him in the presidency or the parliament, of which he also presided. This was an unconscious exercise of his refusal to relinquish the positions he held, which were his exclusive right. Furthermore, to this day, no one has known that he had considered a successor after his death, at the age of 80. He thus rejected the very idea of death, revealing a profound psychological disorder within him. In his speeches delivered during his more than thirty years in power, he attempted to shape events and history according to his personal vision, so that reality would align with his megalomania. He issued numerous decisions to expel international organizations and bodies, sever diplomatic relations with a number of countries, and also severed ties of international cooperation and trade. He plunged Eritrea and its people into international isolation, which he chose himself and made an existential strategy for himself. This was due to the psychological complexes he suffered from, which made him imagine that the world around him could not control him, so he preferred to be the ruler of an isolated country.

The fifth and final point relates to what he said in his address to the graduation ceremony of the 37th batch of conscripts, specifically his statement, “The heroism of the nearly fifty-year journey to achieve the country’s independence…” The period in question actually refers to the history of the Popular Front in the early 1970s, after its split from the Eritrean Liberation Front, which was founded in the early 1960s. This denial of Aziz’s history, which tells of the legendary heroism of the founding generation—of which Isaias was certainly not a part—reflects the fact that he suffers from a host of chronic psychological complexes, including narcissism, which depicts him as the sole centre of history and thus seeks to be the founding father of the Eritrean revolution, as he is the founding father of the state. This behaviour also reflects a lone hero complex through his attempt to appropriate the historical legacy. The most dangerous thing that can be read from this statement is his establishment of a strategy of political hegemony that marginalizes the history of the Eritrean people, erasing any historical legitimacy for his rivals and justifying his current and future oppression. Through this strategy, he also seeks to create a single narrative that enables him to control the collective mind. All of this falls under the complex of controlling everything, referred to in the fourth point. Those with psychological complexes suffer from rejecting uncomfortable facts. The history of the Liberation Front in its early days is the undisputed history of Muslims in terms of adherence to the principle of independence and rejection of joining Ethiopia. Likewise, the political formations initiated by the Eritrean Liberation Movement to frame society to resist colonialism, and the explosion of the Eritrean Liberation Front’s armed struggle against the Ethiopian colonizer. All of this history cannot make Isaias the sole, undisputed hero, and this is unacceptable to Isaias’s psyche, which suffers from cognitive dissonance when it comes to the achievements of others. By concealing the role of the Liberation Front in the struggle, Afwerki seeks to dispel hope in any manifestation of diversity, even in the past. This reinforces the subservience that satisfies Isaias’s ego, who has gone to extremes in erasing history due to the Eritrean state’s long isolation and the absence of any semblance of freedom. In short, what such words coming from the highest echelons of power in Eritrea indicate is that the collective memory of the people has been systematically erased. Table (1) compares some dictatorial presidents with Isaias Afwerki, who has taken on a distinctive characteristic of each dictator.

Leader	Psychological Diagnosis	Similarities with Afwerki
Mobutu Sese Seko (Congo)	Narcissism + Absolute Corruption	Turning the state into personal property
Kim Jong-il (North Korea)	Paranoia + Persecution Complex	International isolation as a strategy
Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)	Old Hero Complex	Refusal to relinquish power until death

Table 1: Psychological Comparisons with Other Leaders

This introduction does not fall within the usual political biographies, but it is an attempt, as stated in its title, to provide psychological insights into a man who led a revolution, transformed it into a regime, and transformed the Eritrean people’s dream of independence into a nightmare. Afwerki’s case calls for the intervention of specialized psychologists, and in our estimation, the first step to treatment is a true and realistic diagnosis of the underlying causes. These specialists are entrusted with carefully studying this case, which may be one of the most complex psychological cases they have encountered, and answering some fundamental and critical questions. For example, how does a (liberation) leader transform into a dictator, or how does a revolutionary transform into a jailer? How does a revolution against colonialism turn into self-colonization? And how can a leader become a prison guard, rather than the head of state?

Compulsory National Service in Eritrea: Between National Security and Systematic Exploitation

According to Human Rights Watch reports, the latest of which was issued in 2023 [1], national service in Eritrea is a rare example in the world in terms of its length, ranging from 15 to 20 years. This is contrary to the 1995 Interim Constitution, which limits it to only 18 months. Thus, Eritrea ranks first in the world in terms of the length of compulsory service. For example, the 2002 batch trained, 93% of who were still serving as of 2023, according to United Nations documents [13]. This service has also become a tool for economic and social control of the population in Eritrea, according to a 2016 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights [2]. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in its 2023 report [3], states that the duration of national service in most countries around the world ranges from 6 to 36 months. Historical Roots and Legal Basis

The roots of compulsory national service in Eritrea date back to the period of the liberation war waged by the people against Ethiopian colonialism, when the people volunteered to defend their land and people. After organizing combat formations and establishing contact with them outside the battlefield, they were asked to serve voluntarily for periods determined by coordination offices located outside Eritrea. The ratio of conscripts to combatants ranged between 46% and 89% between 1961 and 1991, according to documents from the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front [4]. Article 14 of the 1995 Interim Constitution is the legal basis for civil service, and the article explicitly stipulates that the duration should not exceed 18 months, including 6 months for military training [5]. In 1995, the Eritrean President issued Decree No. 82/1995, giving the government the right to extend the period of service in emergency situations, and subjecting all citizens between the ages of 18 and 50 to conscription, in accordance with Article 11 of that decree. In 2002, the country entered a permanent state of emergency by Cabinet Resolution No. 112 of 2002. Table (2) illustrates the development of legislation regulating national service.

Year	Legislation	Specified Duration	Exceptions
1991	Provisional Decree No. 1	6 months	University students
1995	Transitional Constitution	18 months	None
1998	Emergency Decree	Unlimited	None
2002	Presidential Amendment	Lifetime	Senior officials

Table 2: Timeline of National Service Duration [Source: HRW 2023]

Recruitment Mechanisms and Daily Reality in the Camps

In its early days, the Eritrean regime targeted the age group 18–50. However, once the Emergency Law was enacted, which abolished the legal age for conscription and the duration specified in the constitution, the entire population became subject to conscription. However, the most targeted group now is students completing eleventh grade, who are required to complete twelfth grade in army training camps. Students are thus uprooted from school and thrown into these camps. According to a 2021 Amnesty International report [6], 98% of students are permanently conscripted into the army after taking their high school exams. Referring to the numbers of students at the University of Asmara (both admitted and graduating classes) compared to the number of students admitted to Sawa camp, the above-mentioned percentage is almost accurate. Leaked government documents [4] indicated that 98.3% of males aged 18 were recruited in 2020, and 41.7% of females were recruited across Eritrea during the same period, reaching 43% in Sawa camp in 2022. UNICEF classified this percentage as the highest in the world [7]. The documents also indicated that 72% of recruitment operations were carried out through surprise home raids without prior notice.

The daily reality of conscripts differs completely from what is stated in official documents. The aforementioned Civil Service Law stipulates wages of up to 1,500 nakfa (equivalent to approximately $100), but what conscripts receive does not exceed 500 nakfa at best. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [8], living conditions in the barracks lack the most basic requirements for a decent life. The dormitories are temporary camps in which 91% of conscripts live. They are unsanitary, yet the food they eat there does not exceed one meal per day for 78% of them, and 63% sleep less than 5 hours per day. The tragic aspect is what Physicians for Human Rights [9] reported, stating that the death rate in training centres reached 12.7 per 1,000 recruits, as a result of malnutrition and stress resulting from deliberate torture. The same report stated that 84% of recruits were subjected to severe beatings, and that 56% of them were tortured by being tied to a metal chair in the sun. According to a field study conducted by the Refugee Research Centre at Oxford University [10] in 2020, 87% of recruits work more than 10 hours a day, and 73% of them have not received more than a week’s leave in the past five years. Table (3) compares official decisions with actual conditions.

Item	Official Statement	Actual Reality
Duration	18 months	15 – 20 years
Salary	1500 Nakfa	300 – 500 Nakfa
Housing	Equipped barracks	Temporary camps
Food	3 meals per day	One meal

Table (3): Comparison between official and actual conditions

Social, psychological, and health effects

Perhaps this aspect is the darkest and most profound wound in the nature of Eritrean youth. The service has left those who have undergone it with permanent disabilities, family disintegration, and widespread psychological disorders and trauma that last a lifetime. Some have even chosen exile as an alternative to their homeland. In a report, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [11] states that more than 700,000 people have fled the country as a result of this “national service,” which has forced them to seek alternative homelands since 2000. This number represents 12% of the total population of Eritrea. According to a 2021 study by Physicians for Human Rights, 62% of conscripts suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and 34% suffer from mental illness. The rate of permanent disability reached 12%.

As for social aspects, perhaps the most painful is the collapse of family structures for many individuals who joined the service and were subsequently forced to extend their service for long periods. This left behind elderly fathers, disabled mothers, younger siblings, and in some cases, orphans, all of whom lost the men they expected to be their breadwinners and caretakers. Due to the length of service, many of them delayed marriage at the appropriate age, and others were forced to conceal their marriage. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) [12] reports that the marriage rate has fallen to alarming levels among young people aged 18–35. As a result, the birth rate has fallen to 3.1%, the lowest rate in Africa, and 19.3% of households are headed by women due to the conscription of males. All of this represents a change in the demographic structure of Eritrean society.

Health aspects cannot be better than their counterparts in other aspects, and here we only refer to Figure (1), which is considered an example of injuries in one batch, which was issued by the World Health Organization in 2021. The injuries varied into different types, including work injuries (forced labour), which is the highest at 42%, training accidents resulting from excessive violence used in training, which represents 28%, while malnutrition accounted for 15%, and physical violence, often against girls, which represents 10%. Most of these incidents are testimonies recorded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and they include confessions of beatings, torture, rape, and death under torture, as well as death resulting from malnutrition [2], [14], [15], [16].

Figure 1: showing the distribution of infections by type [Source: World Health Organization 2021]

Economic Aspects and Systematic Exploitation

The practices inflicted on conscripts were not individual acts deterred by law, but rather a methodology implemented according to principles established by higher authorities to achieve social, political, or economic objectives. Nothing is more indicative of this than the results the regime has reaped from compulsory service: 40% of the workforce is under military control, and 75% of infrastructure projects are implemented with conscripted labour. According to International Monetary Fund data from 2023 [17], 42% of conscripts work in the agricultural sector, producing crops valued at $120 million annually. Those working in the mining sector contribute $380 million annually, representing an estimated 23%. Another 35% work in construction, contributing $260 million. These figures present a positive image of the service if it were to contribute to the development of the Eritrean national economy, but they largely benefit the influential figures in the state, including generals, politicians, and others. These conscripts work as forced labourers on agricultural projects owned by generals and training camp officials. A 2022 Global Witness report exposed the mining industry, stating that 85% of exploration contracts were concluded without public bidding. The 2023 Economist Intelligence Unit report summarizes the Eritrean economy by stating that “corruption in Eritrea is systemic, and 92% of economic decisions are made by military leaders.” The human and financial cost of these figures was highlighted in the paragraphs above, including the psychological, social, and health effects, as well as the migration of minds, talent, and human resources. This alone costs the country up to $1.2 billion annually, according to UNHCR estimates. The exorbitant costs of this service have also led to three generations losing the opportunity for education and self-development.

Sector	Employment Percentage (%)	Annual Value (USD)
Agriculture	42%	$120 million
Mining	23%	$360 million
Construction	35%	$260 million

Table 4: Contribution of conscripts to the economy [Sources: IMF 2023, World Bank 2023]

International Comparisons

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) conducted a 2023 comparison of Eritrea’s compulsory military service with several other countries (North Korea, Israel, and Norway). The comparison was based on length of service, recruitment rates for target groups, wages received by conscripts, and age groups. The comparison report concluded that Eritrea ranked first in terms of length of service and recruitment rates, and that wages were the lowest among all the countries selected for comparison. Table (5) summarizes the findings of the comparison report.

Country	Duration	Age Range	Participation Rate (%)	Salary (USD)
Eritrea	Unlimited	18–50	98%	$30
North Korea	10 years	17–30	100%	$200
Israel	32 months	18–21	50%	$400
Norway	19 months	19–35	30%	$1500

Table 5: Comparison with other compulsory service systems [Source: SIPRI 2023]

Human Rights Violations

The basis for these violations is the shocking 2021 report of the UN Commission of Inquiry, which stated that since 2016, 632 cases of torture against conscripts had been documented. It also documented 147 cases of enforced disappearance of conscripts between 2018 and 2020. As for cases of sexual exploitation of girls, documented by Human Rights Watch in its 2022 report, they amounted to 23% of female conscripts. It is worth noting that these figures and percentages are only what was documented and do not represent the reality in any way. If we add to this the undocumented violations and other material and moral abuses, the outcomes of which have included flight from the country. The UNHCR (2023) documents that 5,247 Eritreans crossed the sea to Europe every month in 2022, and that 1,883 have died in escape attempts since 2015, as well as the suicides that have not yet been reported, it can be said that national service in Eritrea is a place of utter violation of dignity and human rights.

Eritrea’s Main Training Camps

Eritrean training camps represent the backbone of the national service system, used for intensive military training and the reshaping of individual identity in accordance with government ideology, as well as to provide forced labour for economic projects. When discussing compulsory service, it is important to provide a simplified understanding of training camps, which is certainly simplistic given the scarcity of information about them. Table (6) provides a summary of 17 camps spread across all geographical regions of Eritrea. Seven of these camps are located in the northern region and are the most crowded, six camps are located in the central region and are considered highly secretive, while the remaining four are located in the southern region and are the most dangerous.

#	Camp Name	Approx. Capacity	Main Function	Living Conditions
1	Sawa	20,000 recruits	Basic & Secondary Training	Metal barracks (50 people/room – contaminated water)
2	Gherghera	5,000	Special Forces	Dug-out caves – tight security
3	Dekemhare	8,000	Explosives Manufacturing	Temporary camps – poor ventilation
4	Adi Keyih	6,000	Mountain Warfare	-10°C in winter – heating shortage
5	Ali Ghidir	3,500	Border Fortifications	Exposed camps – heavy dust
6	Bisha	7,000	Gold Mining	Underground tunnels – high humidity
7	Nakfa	4,000	Ideological Training	Old barracks – dilapidated facilities
8	Tsorona	2,500	Frontline Combat	Defensive trenches – frequent shelling
9	Anseba	5,500	Forced Agriculture	Open farms – pesticide exposure
10	Edd Military Discipline Camp	3,000	Punishment for Deserters	Metal cells – 60°C heat
11	Mendefera	2,000	Medical Experimentation	Secret labs – unapproved drugs
12	Keren	6,000	Military Logistics	Weapons depots – tight security
13	Agordat	4,500	Glass Manufacturing	Chemical fumes – no ventilation
14	Assab	3,200	Naval Training	Coastal barracks – salty water
15	Nakura Correctional Facility	2,800	Punishment for “Dissidents”	Metal containers – no toilets
16	Hikota	1,500	—	Direct sun exposure
17	Barentu	4,000	Border Surveillance	Watchtowers – barbed wire

Table 6: Known conscription training camps in Eritrea

In conclusion,

from all the aforementioned facts, witness testimonies, international, regional, and local reports, and leaked government documents, we can conclude that Eritrea’s national service system has exceeded all reasonable limits and has become a tool of systematic oppression and exploitation. This system not only violates international human rights conventions but is also destroying the future of entire generations of Eritrean youth. Because of this service, Eritrea has been struck by a demographic catastrophe, represented by a low population growth rate of 0.9%; a horrific economic collapse, represented by the lowest growth rate in the region of 1.3%; and a social catastrophe, resulting in the destruction of three successive generations. Politically, the service has maintained a totalitarian regime for more than 30 years. Due to compulsory service and reports from international organizations, Eritrea has been subjected to increasing international isolation.

References

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3. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 2023. SIPRI Yearbook.
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5. Government of Eritrea. 2019. Revised National Service Decree. Ref. No. EF-MoD-1129. Eritrea Files Archive. https://eritrea-files.org.
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