The Eritrean regime’s abduction of Eritreans in Sudan is of significantly bigger scale than originally reported. Almost four thousand Eritreans, mostly those who escaped from the mandatory draft, have been picked up from Sudan, loaded in Bettahs (trailers) and hauled back to Eritrea. This may account for the recent increase of Eritrean migration to Ethiopia, where there is little risk of being snatched back. The government of Sudan has been turning a blind eye to this and some Eritrean refugee rights advocates have already begun to complain to the UN Commission on Human Rights. In desperation, many of the youth have tried to jump off the trailers: some sustaining serious injuries and others dying in the process. Once in Eritrea, they are thrown to Track B, Meiter, Sawa, Adi Abeito and the dozens of other known and unknown prisons scattered throughout the country. Hzbawi Mekhete—Asmara Edition The ruling regime’s mass mobilization project, which is known as Hzbawi Mekhete, is still ongoing in Eritrea with senior PFDJ officials presenting seminars. At one such meeting chaired by Askalu Menkorios, the Minister of Labor and Human Welfare, she was presented with challenging questions for which she had no answers and excused herself by stating that it was outside her mandate:
At another hzbawi mekhete seminar at the University of Asmara which was presided by senior cadres and ministers, there were similarly challenging questions: "We are a free nation but people are being detained by hadera [A proxy system where the arresting official asks a prison official to treat the arrestee as a living trust.] Had we been under a colonial regime we could have resisted it. Isn’t this an indication that we are going backwards?” “You claimed that food security has been assured, but I am suffering from hunger because I cannot get bread for my family. Of course you are a government official and I don't expect nor want you to be hungry. But you can never tell me that the people are getting enough food.”
Signs of the times People in rural areas are suffering from lack of cooking oil. Just like sugar and lentils, butane gas is now being distributed through coupons. It is now common to see long lines of people that go round and round the blocks of Asmara. When parents went to Sawa to visit their children they were told to hand over their mobile phones so the government could register them into its database. The mobile phones were gathered in two sacks. But handing over the gadgets was easier than differentiating and retrieving them. The task was so difficult and time-consuming many left in frustration and now think it was an attempt to discourage them from contacting their children at school. The long-promised tankers have docked with their petroleum and the gasoline is at the depots. But everything is in a lock-down, there is no petroleum, and no one knows why. Insiders are speculating that the government is so stripped of cash that it may open the University of Asmara because it can no longer afford the expenses of running the schools at Sawa and Mai Nefhi. People To Watch One more person to add to the list of government officials whose living standards are at odds with their government salaries is Colonel Ezra, the director of the Eritrean Institute of Technology (EIT) at Mai Nefhi. He is often seen drinking Black Label whiskey, staying at expensive hotels and restaurants, and buying drinks for everyone at the bars he frequents. -
Meanwhile, General Wuchu who was indirectly implicated in the assassination of attempt of Colonel Simon and was reportedly under house arrest, appears to have dodged the bullet--at least for now. The government media reported that he was part of the entourage that accompanied Isaias Afwerki in his "inspection tour" of Gash Barka in mid-December. |
