This conversation took place in ‘Karshelli’ prison in Asmara during the weekly interval in which inmates were briefly allowed out to a small courtyard. The time was around late 2002 or early 2003. The person who related this story estimated that the man from Barka and his son were brought to the prison approximately in 1993 or 1994. But, what was the crime for which these two had thus far each paid 9 years of their lives? Nobody could tell. All our man knew was that one morning, as he tended with his 9-year-old son a small herd of camels and goats outside his village, he was apprehended by a group of armed soldiers, put on a car and brought to this place (Karshelli). He didn’t even know where he was until several months later when other inmates started talking to him. Since the day he was brought to Karshelli nobody explained to him why he was there. He was never interrogated![1] Hence, 9 years on, he was still as ignorant about the reason for his incarceration or the prospect of his release as he was on the day of his arrest.

The first time I heard about the ‘child prisoner’ in Karshelli and his father was in 1999. Since then more than one person, including one former prisoner that I personally met, related that they had seen or were told by other former inmates about a man and his son who had been in that prison for years. Some of the informers had seen or heard about the father-and-son inmates in the mid 1990s, others in late that decade, and still others as late as 2003. The last time I had knowledge of their continued presence in Karshelli was the year 2003. I have no further information whether they are still languishing there or, otherwise, what has become of them.

While, regrettably, I could not establish the names of either the father or the son, I was told that they come from Barka Laal (upper Barka), from the vicinities around Mansura and Hrkok. The exact reason for their arrest and continued imprisonment is not known. However, it is believed that it came as part of a campaign of ‘pacification’ that the PFDJ government had been conducting particularly in the Barka region in the 1990s. In response to armed opposition activities in the area, the government was pursuing a policy of collective punishment subjecting the region’s civilian population to harsh punitive measures. For example, villages and communities who happened to be in the vicinity of a landmine explosion were made to pay the cost of damaged vehicles, and arrests were made among their young men. The forced villagization policy, which the government still continues to implement with the pretext of facilitating development, is also part of this larger policy of pacification. It was not uncommon, therefore, in those years for the government’s security agents to grab any person from the remote villages of Barka and throw them in prison. As we all know, in later years, this practice only intensified and expanded to all parts of the country. The story of our man in Karshelli, therefore, is not unique. It is one of thousands of tragedies that have befallen innocent Eritreans. What makes it distinctive, however, is the story of the little boy who found himself become a man in the dungeons of PFDJ.

What is it like to grow up in prison? What is it like when living within four cold, hard walls becomes the only life a child knows? What is it like for a little boy to be suddenly uprooted from his normal environment and be thrust into an unfamiliar, merciless life of physical confinement?  For someone’s innocent childhood to come to such an abrupt and cruel end?  Such captivity seems all the more brutal for a boy who had spent his early childhood in the vast prairies of upper Barka. A kid who was used to roaming the seemingly endless grasslands, meandering in the serene arkokebay-lined riverbanks, watching the night stars in the clear Barkan sky … a boy whose imagination must have known no limits. What a cynical leap … from the boundless horizons of Mansura Plain to a nameless cell in Karshelli! So, here he was, in a situation he hardly understands, reduced to a mere ‘number’, counting the days, the weeks, the months, the years …

When his childhood buddies were playfully wrestling in the sands of the dry riverbed, here he was in Karshelli standing in front of a stone-faced jailer; when those old playmates were enjoying their tantalizing porridge, he was being handed a dry peace of bread and a nominal dish of ades; as some of those friends attended school, he had to be contented with whatever wisdom his fellow-prisoner father might share with him. Years later, when those old playmates were discovering their budding manhood, the ‘child-prisoner’ was lying in his disintegrating blanket staring at a blank stone wall; and when they were busy competing for the attentions of their first sweethearts around the village well, he had only his imagination to rely on. … … … If only he could briefly escape his confinement and be with those old pals as they gathered around the bonfire and shared stories and quizzes!

The more I think about it, the more unfathomable the life of the child-prisoner seems to me? I can’t help but think about what thoughts might have gone through his mind over the years. How did his thinking develop? How did his personality evolve? And what about physical changes? How did he handle adolescence? How did he react, as a child prisoner, to the inescapable changes in his physiology? Was his father giving him the necessary advice as the little boy of yesterday entered manhood in that most unforgiving environment? And what did he and his father talk about all those years?

Today, wherever he might be, that boy would be 24 years old.

----------------

The story of the child-prisoner of Karshelli and his father is by now fairly well-known among current and former inmates of that prison as well as with the guards. I am sure there would be people, among Awate’s readers, who have heard about it. If anyone knows more about this story, especially the names of its protagonists and their current status/whereabouts, please write to me or to Awate.com