Domestic Politics

Eritrea’s autocratic political system was not reformed in any way, and the state remained under the firm rule of President Isaias Afewerki. The constitution that had been ratified in 1997 remained un-implemented, and plans to draft a new one seemed to have been dropped. There were no plans either to hold national elections in the near future, and the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (pfdj) remained the only political party, with no other political organisations allowed. The cabinet of ministers met on 10 February, 8 September and 11 November, and discussed plans to improve education and health services as well as structural adjustments, including the revision of budgetary allocations to priority development programmes with the aim of expanding renewable energy and the electric power supply, and improving the supply of fuel, basic consumer goods and water for households, all of which had been in short supply for many years. As in previous years, there were no major cabinet reshuffles and most of the cabinet members were over 70 years of age. The post of minister of defence remained vacant, while Hagos Ghebrehiwet ‘Kisha’, pfdj’s head of economic affairs, retained his powerful position as economic adviser to the president and unofficial supervisor of the country’s finances. Nesredin Bekhit, who was known for his notorious involvement in the contraband trade via the Sudanese border, remained minister of trade and industry, and Brigadier General Sebhat Ephrem retained his post as minister of energy and mining. Ms Leul Gebreab, previously head of the National Union of Eritrean Women, was appointed minister of labour and human welfare, replacing Salma Hassen. After the death of Eritrea’s permanent representative at the un, Girma Asmerom, in October 2016, his position was not filled by a replacement, but his former deputy Amanuel Giorgio acted as interim chargé d’affaires.

Presidential adviser and head of the ruling pfdj Yemane Gebreab, who had been a key figure in representing the government to foreign policy makers and had acted as chief propagandist to the diaspora by delivering speeches at festivals and during seminars, was seriously injured on 5 July. He was reportedly attacked by Eritrean refugees with blunt weapons after holding a dinner at a pfdj-owned restaurant in Rome with Eritrea’s ambassador to Italy, Petros Fissehazion, and remained hospitalised for an extended period. While the Eritrean government remained silent about the incident, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the assault. According to Italian media, the suspected perpetrators were going to be charged with attempted murder.

Chief of Staff of the Eritrean Defence Forces Major General Philippos Weldeyohannes remained the strongman among the military leadership. Brigadier General Eyob ‘Halibay’ Fessahaye reportedly acted as leader of the Special Forces, a military elite group responsible for the president’s personal security. Little was heard about Brigadier General Tekle ‘Manjus’ Kiflay, who was infamous for his involvement in human trafficking and smuggling, but it seemed that he retained his position as commander of the western military command zone and was in charge of border control. The 2012 rule of a compulsory citizens’ militia that forced elderly people to carry guns and patrol their neighbourhoods remained in place, although prevailing passive resistance by the persons concerned prevented its firm implementation.

Ethiopian state media reported in March that almost 100 Eritrea-based ‘anti-peace elements’, namely members of the Eritrea-based wing of the Oromo Liberation Front and Ginbot 7 had been captured while trying to cross the border into Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region with the aim of committing acts of sabotage. However, reports by Ginbot 7 defectors who had voluntarily returned to Ethiopia indicated that only 280 fighters were left in Eritrea. Berhanu Nega, leader of Ginbot 7, spent most of his time touring the Ethiopian diaspora in the usa and Canada.

The appalling human rights situation did not improve, and civil liberties were non-existent. Eritrea changed places with North Korea and was placed second-lowest worldwide in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom ranking, with at least 11 journalists imprisoned without charge or trial. On 30 March, unesco awarded its Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize to Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak, who had remained behind bars for 16 years. None of the surviving members of the G15, a group of prominent pfdj officials who had been jailed after they had criticised President Isaias in 2001, demanding political reforms and national elections, had been brought before a court of law. Religious freedom was denied to followers of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostal churches, and the permitted religious denominations, namely Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran Christianity and Sunni Islam remained under close surveillance by government agents. Followers of unregistered churches were periodically rounded up and arrested in various parts of the country. In an attempt to ban religious education, the government cracked down on the three remaining schools in Asmara that provided religious education – the Catholic school at the Cathedral, the Orthodox school at Enda Mariam (the main Orthodox church) and the Islamic Al-Dia school, which served hundreds of students in the capital’s Akria neighbourhood. Following the arrest of an elderly member of the school’s board, Hajji Mussa Mohammed Nur, who had sharply criticised orders from the Ministry of Education to remove religion from the school’s curriculum and had publicly declared his defiance, Asmara witnessed its first demonstration since 2001. On 31 October, a large crowd of students protested against the arrest of the nonagenarian and marched towards the Ministry of Education in downtown Asmara. The demonstration was dispersed by security personnel firing into the air with live ammunition. However, contrary to reports distributed by Qatar-based media outlets, there were no fatalities. Mobile phone videos documenting the rare event were widely shared on social media and provoked solidarity demonstrations by diaspora groups in many European and American cities. The demonstrators stressed Muslim-Christian solidarity against the government’s interference in religious affairs and carried pictures of Hajji Mussa and the Orthodox Patriarch Abune Antonios, another prominent religious figure detained by the government.

Eritrea’s judicial system remained in disarray and there was no rule of law. Most arrests and detentions, either for political reasons or for alleged criminal offences, occurred without formal juridical procedures. Since the closure of Eritrea’s only university in 2006, there had been no formal possibility to study law, and so the country lacked qualified jurists and lawyers. Informal litigation based on customary law continued to be the basis of civil jurisdiction and conflict resolution, and there were no indications that the civil and penal codes introduced in 2015 were being implemented. Corruption remained endemic in the civil administration, which was mostly run by under-paid national service conscripts, as well as among high-ranking military personnel and pfdj cadres. Conscripts regularly had to pay for holiday extensions and service exemptions, or to be smuggled over the border. ti’s Corruption Perception Index ranked Eritrea as highly corrupt (164th out of 178 countries).

The mandates of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Eritrea and the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea were not renewed beyond 2016, despite demands by several human rights organisations, and charges of crimes against humanity being committed by Eritrean government officials were not pursued by un organisations or the icc.

The Eritrean diaspora remained split between government supporters and opponents. However, the spontaneous demonstrations launched at several European, North American and Australian locations on the occasion of the arrest of Hajji Mussa in early November showed the widespread unease of many Eritreans abroad with the government’s intervention in religious affairs.

Foreign Affairs

On 14 November, the unsc extended the targeted sanctions imposed on Eritrea that had been in place since December 2009 (resolution 1907–2009) and December 2011 (resolution 2023–2011) for one year, with 11 votes in favour and four abstentions (Bolivia, Egypt, China and the Russian Federation). The unsc urged the government of Eritrea to provide information concerning the fate of missing Djiboutian pows and expressed concern over its support for regional armed groups.

Eritrea continued to place its port city Assab at the disposal of the Saudi-led Arab coalition against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. On 31 December, the Eritrean president travelled to Abu Dhabi and met with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the deputy supreme commander of the uae armed forces. As a consequence of the government’s military alliance with Saudi Arabia and the uae, relations with Qatar deteriorated sharply in the course of the diplomatic crisis in the Arabian Peninsula that evolved in June between Qatar and the Saudi Kingdom, the uae and Bahrain. Ironically, both Eritrea and its foe Djibouti sided with the Saudi coalition and downgraded their relations with Qatar, which had been a close Eritrean ally and generous financial sponsor of the Isaias regime for many years. In response, Qatar resigned within days from its role as a mediator in the border dispute between the two countries. Qatar had been monitoring the Eritrean-Djiboutian border since 2010, but no progress had been achieved towards a rapprochement between the two governments and a demarcation of the contested border. The au and China declared their readiness to step in as mediators, but Eritrea’s ambassador to the au Araia Desta insisted on 4 July that Qatar should remain the sole mediator in the dispute, despite the removal of its peacekeepers. This attitude was understandable against the background of China’s close relations to the Djiboutian government as a host of its only military base in Africa, and the au’s perceived pro-Djiboutian bias, since the small country was a close ally of the au’s host, Ethiopia. No progress was made in the political stalemate between Eritrea and Ethiopia, but the situation along the contested border remained calm except for isolated shelling, mostly when Eritrean troops opened fire on refugees.

Eritrea’s relations with Egypt remained close, since the al-Sisi government regarded the country as a strategic partner in its conflict with Ethiopia over the Nile waters. In mid-March, an Egyptian delegation visited Eritrea with the official purpose of discussing cooperation in the field of fisheries and was welcomed by President Isaias and his economic advisor Hagos ‘Kisha’ Gebrehiwot in person. On 20 March, Minister of Foreign Affairs Osman Saleh and presidential adviser Yemane Gebreab travelled to Cairo to continue the discussions and, on 6 May, the duo visited Egypt once again and met with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri, who stressed that cooperation with Eritrea was important due to the current challenges besetting the region. In late December, a complex diplomatic crisis evolved. Tensions between Egypt and Sudan increased over alleged Egyptian attempts to exclude the Sudanese government from the tripartite talks concerning the effect of Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam on the distribution of the Nile water. Egypt rejected these allegations, but a border dispute over the Halayeb Triangle further aggravated tensions between the countries.

To make matters worse, Turkey’s President Erdoğan visited Sudan on 24 December and proposed restoring the ancient Ottoman port of Suakin on the Red Sea coast. Two days later, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour stated that the refurbished port would be able to service both civilian and military vessels, while Turkey stressed its intention to create a tourist attraction, even though Turkish Army Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar was a member of the Turkish delegation, tasked with discussing security cooperation. The Turkish move angered Egypt, which saw the reconstruction of the port on the strategically important Red Sea coast a short distance from the Arabian Peninsula as a provocation. Turkey, as well as Qatar, were considered to be supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore at odds with the Egyptian government.

The deteriorating relations between Sudan and Egypt had serious effects on Eritrea. On 30 December, the Sudanese government declared a six-month state of emergency in Kassala, Sudan’s eastern province bordering Eritrea and a centre for smuggling and human trafficking with the involvement of Eritrean and Sudanese officials. Sudan feared a possible military build-up of Egyptian troops in Eritrea and started to deploy troops along its border with Eritrea with the official aim of clearing the region of illicit weapons.

While no official state visits of Eritrean delegations to Sudan took place, Foreign Minister Osman Saleh and his escort Yemane Gebreab visited South Sudan on 4 April, where they met President Salva Kiir in Juba. From 30 January to 1 February, they visited Russia and held talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about economic cooperation and possible Russian investment in Eritrea’s mining sector. In late August, the Israeli High Court decided that a plan of the Netanyahu government to offer Eritrean and Sudanese refugees in Israel the choice between deportation to Rwanda and indefinite imprisonment was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the Israeli government continued its preparations to deport tens of thousands of persons branded ‘illegal infiltrators’ and decided on 19 November to close the semi-open Holot detention facility and to force refugees to make a decision between deportation and indefinite imprisonment in Israel. The decision was criticised as a violation of national and international law by Israeli pro-refugee activists and triggered international protests, including from prominent Jews in the United States.

The numbers of Eritreans reaching Europe via the Mediterranean decreased to about 8,000 individuals, probably an effect of the Khartoum Process, which had resulted in harsh measures against refugees en route from Sudan to Libya, and the deteriorating situation inside Libya, where Europe had empowered the local coast guards to apprehend refugees trying to reach Europe by boat and transport them back to Libyan detention centres, where they became victims of regular abuse and were subjected to appalling living conditions. Relations between the eu and Eritrea remained stable, but there were fewer efforts by European policymakers to court representatives of the Eritrean government. In late August, the Austrian head of the eu delegation in Asmara, Christian Manahl, was replaced by Josep Coll i Carbo, a Spaniard from Catalonia. On 20 December, the Dutch parliament passed a motion to close down the Eritrean embassy in the Netherlands in response to the protracted use of coercion to raise the 2% diaspora tax among diaspora Eritreans in the Netherlands.

Relations between the usa and Eritrea remained poor, and no ambassadors were exchanged. In October, the us put Eritrea on a sanctions list together with North Korea, Russia and Syria for failing to combat human trafficking. This measure further limited access for Eritreans to American educational and cultural exchange programmes. Relations between Eritrea and China remained stable. On 11 November, Chinese ambassador to Eritrea Yang Zigang encouraged the Eritrean government to enhance its cooperation with his country in the economic field, stressing that the current level of mutual engagement left much to be desired.

Socioeconomic Developments

Eritrea’s command economy remained under the control of the ruling pfdj and the military leadership, and whatever was left of small business activities in the private sector came under even stronger scrutiny. The government’s attempts to turn Eritrea’s cash-based economy into a cheque-based economy continued, and families as well as businessmen were not allowed to withdraw sums exceeding ern (nafka) 5,000 ($ 333) per month from their bank accounts. Due to the resulting limitation of bank notes in circulation, the currency black market rate gradually came to approximate the official exchange rate of ern 15: $ 1, making it less attractive for diaspora Eritreans to use the informal ‘Hawala’ system to remit money to their relatives. However, inflation remained high at 8.9% according to the African Economic Outlook, which aggravated the population’s dire economic situation. In an unusual move from mid-December, the government shut down 450 private businesses, including hotels and cafeterias, which made up the bulk of remaining private enterprises beyond the size of micro-businesses. The Ministry of Information justified the measures in an editorial published on 29 December by stating that the affected businesses had failed to use cheques and other unspecified banking systems for their transactions, and that cash transfers “are always fraught with security, social, economic and other avoidable pitfalls”. The statement ignored the fact that Eritrea’s banking system lagged decades behind international developments, and payments by debit or credit card or other methods of cashless payment were not in use in the country. The shut-down constituted another arbitrary measure taken by the ruling elite to secure total control over financial flows in the country with uncertain outcomes for its economic development.

In a report dated 3 February 2018, the government website shabait.com admitted that the 2017 harvest had been significantly lower than in 2016 due to low rainfall. In the Southern Region (Zoba Debub), the harvest amounted to only half of that in 2016; in the Central Region (Zoba Ma’akel), the harvest was down 41%. unicef indicated an increase in malnutrition rates in four out of six regions based on data from the Nutrition Sentinel Site Surveillance system and provided support to almost 58,000 children suffering from malnutrition. It also stressed that only half of the rural population had access to safe drinking water and that diarrhoea and measles outbreaks posed an additional threat to vulnerable children. The scarcity of consumer goods and fuel and shortcomings in the electricity supply in urban areas including Asmara continued.

The Warsay-Yikealo Development Campaign, introduced in 2002 as an open-ended national service programme to replace the original 18-month military and civil service, remained in place. Earlier promises to representatives of the international community that the length of the service would be reduced to its original 18 months were not kept. Male Eritreans aged 18–60 and women aged 18–27 were forced to work either for the military or for pfdj-owned companies or in the public administration for a small remuneration that was not enough to maintain a family. The educational and health sectors continued to be run mainly by national service conscripts, who were often poorly motivated and not properly trained for their work as teachers or health personnel. As in previous years, thousands of young Eritreans opted to flee the country instead of doing national service for life. In November, unhcr Ethiopia reported 22,700 new arrivals of Eritrean refugees, bringing the total numbers to almost 170,000. Sudan hosted 108,000 Eritrean refugees according to the unhcr, excluding a high number of unregistered persons who tried to travel on towards Europe as quickly as possible via Libya or Egypt. In September, the unhcr expressed its deep concern over ongoing deportations of Eritreans to their home country by Sudanese authorities. In August, more than 100 Eritreans, among them 30 children and 46 women, had been denied refugee status and accused of illegal infiltration after being arrested by the Rapid Support Forces, an infamous militia tasked to stop and detain refugees along the migration routes, which constituted a clear breach of international law. Deportations of Eritreans, with the exception of some prominent political figures, had been almost unknown before the initiation by the eu of the Khartoum Process, intended to curb migration from East Africa to Europe through improved migration management in the region.

The National Indicative Program (nip) under the 11th edf was signed by Eritrea and the eu early in the year. It had the ambitious aims of boosting the renewable energy sector in order to end the chronic electricity shortages and was also meant to improve governance and public financial management, modernise the financial sector, enhance economic planning and put Eritrea on a sound statistical basis. But it remained largely unimplemented. A pv mini-grid solar system, to be installed in the Southern Region at a cost of € 8 m, remained the only project announced under the nip, and it was unclear whether any plans for the use of the remaining € 198 m existed.

The government continued to withhold statistical information and did not publish a national budget. Accordingly, statistical data remained unreliable and erratic. World Bank data indicated primary school enrolment had deteriorated to 39% in 2015 (the latest year for which figures were available), secondary school enrolment was at 25% and tertiary enrolment at 2.5%. Eritrea’s exports depended heavily on copper and zinc produced by the Bisha mine, a joint venture between the Canadian Nevsun company and the Eritrean National Mining Company; the Colluli Potash mine in the Southern Red Sea region did not become operational. According to the African Economic Outlook, economic growth stood at 3.8% in 2016, down from 4.8% in 2015, and the current account deficit stood at –0.1%.

In July, unesco designated Eritrea’s capital Asmara, known for its exquisite modernist buildings from the time of Italian colonisation, as a world heritage site. Most of the buildings constructed by futurist architects dated back to the 1930s and had been poorly maintained under the pfdj government. However, the unesco decision did not result in the desired increase in tourism – according to the travel review website TripAdvisor, Eritrea was the least-reviewed country on earth in 2017.