Eritrean Refugees

 

Eritrea, Africa’s second-newest state, came into being in 1991, when the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) broke away from Ethiopia after 3 decades of Guerilla Struggle

 

Its independence was codified in a 1993 popular referendum backed by the UN. Isais Afwerki, a guerrilla leader, became president, and remade the EPLF as the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ).

 It remains the only legally sanctioned political party

The one-party system, a holdover from Eritrea’s tumultuous birth, became entrenched as the military and ruling party refused to relinquish their privileged positions, citing external threats to the young country's survival.

National development was the first priority for the economically ravaged country, and at the outset the EPLF/PFDJ were widely perceived as legitimate rulers

The government convened a legislature, and a draft constitution was ratified in 1997. But the legislature remained without authority, and the constitution was never implemented, nor were promised national elections ever held.

In 2009, the UN Security Council Sanctioned Eritrea for its alleged support of al-Shabab, an Islamist militia in Somalia, as a means of undermining the much larger and more powerful Ethiopia. The UN measures include an arms embargo and travel bans and asset freezes for designated individuals.

Conscription in the National Service Program is the factor most commonly cited by asylum seekers who have fled the country

A statutory requirement of eighteen months of military or civilian service was extended in 2002, following the war with Ethiopia, so that it became, in practice, indefinite

The UN commission of inquiry found that national service often entails “arbitrary detention, torture, sexual torture, forced labor, absence of leave, and the [sic] ludicrous pay,” calling it “an institution where slavery-like practices are routine.” For many, leaving national service is only possible by deserting the military and fleeing the country, the commission found.

A quarter million Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers have settled in refugee camps and cities in neighboring Ethiopia and Sudan

By the end of 2014, the UN refugee agency reported eighty thousand Eritrean refugees residing in the EU, and its member-states received another 16,690 asylum applications in the first eight months of 2015. (EU countries grant asylum to about 90 %of Eritrean asylum seekers.)

After Syrians and Afghans, Eritreans comprise the third largest group of migrants to cross the Mediterranean Sea

Ethiopia is the starting point for Eritrean refugees making their way to Europe. This neighbouring country has the highest number of refugees in Africa - more than  7 lakh people according to international monitors, of whom more than 100,000 are Eritrean