Following up on its threat of June, and the conclusion of its “Council of Ministers” meeting, the Eritrean government has launched a sweeping round-up of parents whose children are said to have fled the country. The campaign, which started in the “Debub” (Southern) region in the early hours of Friday, 15 July, targets the parents of any person, civilian or military, who has left the country without an exit visa in the last several years. The arrests primarily target the father, and where the father is unavailable, the mother or the eldest available brother or the closest adult relative is detained.
The campaign is still continuing.
So far, reports of arrests have been arriving from Mendefera, Adi Khuala, Tera Emni, Arreza, Mai Mine, Adi Keih, Mai Aini, Hazemo and all their surrounding villages. In the area of Adi Keih, which includes dozens of villages, two army divisions, including the 15th Division, have been participating in the round up. An estimated 700- 800 parents are confirmed to have been incarcerated in this “n’us zoba” (sub-zone) alone. They were all brought to the town’s major prison (Dguana), and were subsequently moved to an undisclosed location on the night of 16 July.
In the whole region of Debub, the number of the detainees is estimated to be in the thousands.
Eyewitnesses have reported that the detained parents and relatives include elderly people, some of whom were infirm or blind. Among the detainees in Adi Keih was a woman in an advanced state of pregnancy who has given birth in detention.
Eyewitnesses, who have seen some detainees being beaten and dragged onto army trucks, have also recounted that many of the incarcerated were in a state of agitation and were engaged in heated arguments with their captors insisting that they should not be held responsible for the acts of their children who are adults and, if they had left the country, they had done so while in government’s care.
Meanwhile, the government has also initiated targeted campaigns to apprehend female students who have completed 11th grade but opted to stay at home instead of reporting to Sawa. Last week, the town of Dekemhare was the target. Similar campaigns are expected in Asmara and other major towns.
To facilitate the arrest of any girl who may not report to Sawa, all high school authorities have been instructed to obtain the full details (address and other key information) of all female students who sit for the 11th grade exam.
Background
The swapping of positions between Mr. Mustapha Nurhussein, the former governor of Gash Barka and a loyal executioner of President Isaias Afwerki’s orders, and Mr. Kahsai Gebrehiwet, the former governor of Southern Region, was partly meant to reverse the exodus of Eritreans to Ethiopia and Sudan. Before his reassignment to Gash-Barka, Mr. Kahsai Gebrehiwet had indicated in a meeting in Mendefera that, in 2004, an average of 350-450 people per month had crossed the border to Ethiopia. Those who cross to Ethiopia are held in make-shift refugee camps in Ethiopia’s northern state of Tigray.
The government’s concern regarding such large numbers of young people fleeing the country was also voiced by other government officials in a series of meetings held with the public in the month of June 2005. The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Arefaine Berhe, and the Minister of Health, Mr. Saleh Meki, were among those who expressed the government’s concern about this issue in the towns of Senafe and Adi Keih, respectively.
In 2003 the government had issued instructions forbidding the automatic issuance of new citizenship ID cards to those reaching 18 years of age. To ensure compliance of reporting to Sawa, the government had required that the ID cards be issued only in Sawa. The government’s recent roundup campaign suggests that this policy of conditional citizenship has not been enough of an incentive to increase compliance with the ruling for young women who, according to an attendant of a PFDJ-chaired “dialogue” session, “do not see a future.”
