Eritrea: the African North Korea which thousands will risk anything to escape

Telegraph ^ | 6:30PM BST 03 Oct 2013 | David Blair

[Pan_Yan]

There is no civil war in Eritrea: its people flee because their isolated homeland could pass as an African version of North Korea. Like the Kim regime in Pyongyang, President Isaias Afewerki keeps Eritrea on a permanent war-footing.

Most adults are conscripted into the army or forced to perform compulsory labour of some kind. Today, one Eritrean in every 20 serves in a bloated army with 320,000 soldiers.

Mr Isaias justifies this eternal mass mobilisation by claiming that neighbouring Ethiopia is scheming to re-conquer Eritrea. Just as the fictional state of “Oceania” was always at war in George Orwell’s “1984”, so Mr Isaias presents his repression as essential to guarantee the survival of the nation against outside enemies.

That message has some resonance because of Eritrea’s traumatic history. The country broke away from Ethiopia in 1993 after waging a brutal 30-year struggle for independence. The two neighbours have remained bitter rivals ever since, fighting a border war between 1998 and 2000 that claimed perhaps 70,000 lives.

[Pan_Yan]

But Eritreas president is Christian as is nearly half the population, the other half being Moslems

I got corrected already about that but even though the president may have been raised in a nominally Christian household his loyalty lies elsewhere. He was trained in China and supports Al Qaeda.

185 Christians Arrested During Raid in Eritrea

[Cronos]

Thanks for that information. I didn’t know that