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The United Kingdom through its Embassy in Asmara announced that promoting a positive Eritrean role in the horn of Africa and improving human rights in the country are its two country priority agendas.
The government acknowledges Eritrea’s strategic location makes it highly important to the stability in the Horn of Africa.
In light of working to secure the full range of British interests and values in Eritrea, the UK government made it clear that it is working with the government of the State of Eritrea and other partners in promoting a positive Eritrean role in the troubled region including for allowing the UN to consider easing of sanctions.
Here below is what the UK government has issued this week regarding its support to Eritrea’s positive role in the HOA.
ISSUES
Eritrea...
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Eritrea: Scenarios for Future Transition
Africa Report N°200
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Events in the last twelve months indicate growing discontent inside Eritrea’s tightly controlled regime, as well as deepening political and social divisions. While the mounting number of incidents suggests that President Isaias Afwerki’s regime is vulnerable, with increasing concerns over its ability to stay in power, the country would face numerous institutional, socio-economic and geopolitical obstacles during and after any transition. A careful assessment of these, as well as the role neighbours and the wider international community could play, is urgently needed to help avoid a violent power struggle that could prove dangerous for the Horn of Africa and potentially – as Eritrea is a littoral state – for the Red Sea region.
Isaias’s...
Eritrean man gets 9 years in prison for aiding Somalia’s al Shabaab
(Reuters) – An Eritrean man who admitted to having ties to the al Qaeda-linked militant group al Shabaab was sentenced on Wednesday to 9-1/4 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said.
Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed pleaded guilty in June to conspiring to provide material support to al Shabaab, and to conspiring to receive military-type training from the group.
Ahmed, 38, was arrested in Nigeria in November 2009 and brought to Manhattan federal court to face U.S. terrorism charges in March 2010. He is an Eritrean national and a permanent resident of Sweden.
“Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed traveled thousands of miles to align himself with al Shabaab to aid their campaign of terror and to learn their ‘ways of war,’” Bharara said in a statement. “Today, his journey ends in prison.”
U.S....
Friday, March 15, 2013
Eritrean girl: I thought kidnappers would kill us
Two children of a British woman, who was born and raised in Eritrea, are among the latest people to have their lives torn apart by kidnappers.
Kidnap gangs in parts of Egypt and east Sudan are increasingly preying upon the thousands of Eritrean refugees who flee their impoverished and repressive country each year.
Lemlem Ghebru's two daughters, aged 14 and 15, were freed when their captor's base in east Sudan was stormed by security forces.
Speaking to the BBC's Mike Thomson, Lemlem explained: "When I came to live in London I wasn't able to bring my daughters with me from Eritrea. I was desperate to get them out of the country too.
"They then came up with the idea of getting people traffickers to smuggle them into east Sudan, where their grandmother lives. But the people my daughters...
Eritrea: AU Commission to Take Up Swedish-Eritrean Journalist’s Case
Media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, said on Wednesday that, the African Union’s main human rights body has decided to investigate the case of imprisoned Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak.
Eritrean authorities detained Isaak in September 2001 for writing articles critical of the government and has since been held incommunicado.
He is one of the many journalists and reform-minded government figures who remain languishing in Eritrea’s underground detention centers since a government crack down in 2001.
The Swedish office of Reporters Without Borders has highly welcomed the decision of African Union human rights panel to probe Isaak’s case.
The press freedom group also commended the concerns shown by the newly-appointed Special Rapporteur for Eritrea over the situations...