January 21: As Told By Official Isaias Afwerki Apologists

On January 28, a representative from the pro-Isaias regime “Eritrean community” in the US made the following “official” announcement at a Paltalk room (Eritrean unity worldwide-EPLF 1).  What follows is a summary of the 9-minute audio presentation in Tigrinya.  Words in brackets are ours.

1. On January 21, at 10:00 am the Ministry of Information was surrounded by members of the Eritrean Defense Forces who had been sent there, under false pretenses of trying to solve a problem within the ministry, by their leaders.

2. Their leaders, holding pistols, numbered five.  The innocent followers were about sixty to sixty five.  They had arrived there [from place undisclosed] on transport vehicles and were hauling tanks.

3. Inside, the five leaders [no names given] demanded that their announcement [what the announcement is is not specified: its like garlic to a vampire] be read out.  The announcement was read but due to the creativity of the MoI staff, it was never broadcast, although the leaders of the incident may have thought so.

4. Eventually, the authorities sent someone [no name] to find out what was going on.  There was an exchange of fire, one person [name, title, undisclosed] was wounded, but he is recovering [since he said this as an assurance, we can assume he is somebody whose life is valuable, ie, he is pro-Isaias Afwerki.]

5. The sixty-five innocent members of the defense forces were given the required hospitality and care and sent back to their bases.

6. The five leaders attempted an escape.  Three [no name given] were captured, the other two [no name given] escaped.  Subsequently, security forces captured one [no name.]  The remaining one was found by security forces; he would not surrender, in fact, he started shooting and [awateteam: here we will attempt a near verbatim translation]: “tekariju dikum tblwo? he was disposed of, is that how you say it?” [mocking his death is ok, because he was not a “good guy.”]

7. From the civilian side, Abdella Jaber and Mustapha Nurhussein have been detained. [awateteam: this was said as an aside, as an afterthought.  He is talking about two individuals who had been loyal members of EPLF/PFDJ for decades–the former was in charge of organizational affairs for the ruling party; the latter was a governor of one of Eritrea’s six provinces.   No explanation was given as to why they are arrested.  Of course.]

Victory to the masses!
[unless Isaias Afwerki is displeased by that]