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EUROPE’S REFUGEE CRISIS is getting worse — in July over 100,000 migrants arrived on the continent, the first time that symbolic level has been breached.
There’s one story that most people haven’t heard — that of Eritrea.
The country is one of the largest sources of the migrants arriving on Europe’s shores, despite a total population smaller than that of London. Adjusted for its population, a larger proportion of Eritreans arrive than of Syrians or Afghans.
Some of the people from sub-Saharan Africa crossing the Mediterranean are likely to be economic migrants — those who want to live and work in Europe because it provides them with enormous opportunities, but not because their lives would be in danger otherwise (despite the danger of the crossing itself).
But Eritreans are fleeing Eritrea.
The Wall Street Journal has documented the migrant hierarchy present in the Mediterranean, with one consultant saying that “sub-Saharans are put in the hulls. If the boat takes water, they’re the first to drown.”
That hierarchy is true in terms of attention, too. Though the tragedy of Syria’s war is perhaps not given as much international attention as it deserves, it gets a colossal amount more attention than Eritrea.
The East African country is one of a handful that gets the worst score possible from Freedom House, matching neighbours Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
In fact, in terms of press freedom, Reporters Without Borders says there is just one country that’s worse than North Korea. You can guess which. In March, the BBC was allowed into the country for the first time in a decade.
Here’s the start of the latest report from the UN’s human rights committee, reporting on Eritrea in June:
The commission finds that systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Government of Eritrea and that there is no accountability for them. The enjoyment of rights and freedoms are severely curtailed in an overall context of a total lack of rule of law. The commission also finds that the violations in the areas of extrajudicial executions, torture (including sexual torture), national service and forced labour may constitute crimes against humanity. The commission emphasizes [sic] that its present findings should not be interpreted as a conclusion that international crimes have not been committed in other areas.
More Eritrean citizens are accepted as refugees once they’ve applied than for any country other than Syria. Some 90% of applications have a positive outcome, in comparison to about half of non-EU applications in general.
President Isaias Afwerki has held his office for 22 years, since the country became independent from Ethiopia in 1993.
According to Amnesty International, there is religious persecution, too. Though the exact breakdown isn’t clear, the country has large populations of both Muslims and Christians. Within the Christian churches, those that have not been approved by the government — like Pentecostal and evangelical organisations — are regularly arrested.
Though he headed one of the approved sects, the Orthodox patriarch was also arrested nearly eight years ago, and is still held under house arrest. Minority groups like the Afar people report that the government has engaged in ethnic cleansing against them.
Eritrean military service is supposed to last 18 months, but one study suggested the average length was more like six-and-a-half years. The conscripts are enlisted into construction projects in the country and the UN says that working conditions display “a pattern of torture, inhuman, cruel or degrading treatment or punishment”.
A 2010 Foreign Policy article, titled ‘Africa’s North Korea’ notes that the country has more soldiers per head of population than any nation other than Kim Jong Un’s hermit kingdom:
Why the desperate privation? Because the military has taken over virtually every aspect of Eritrean life. Despite its tiny size, Eritrea has the largest army in sub-Saharan Africa, with as many as 320,000 soldiers. Its number of soldiers per capita puts Eritrea second only to North Korea, a feat made possible by the ruthless enforcement of mandatory national service for all citizens, men and women alike.
Over dinner one evening, a resident UN staffer whispered to me about a new expansion of the requirement. To graduate from high school, she explained, youth were now required to attend “national camp” during their final year. Although the government claims this amounts to only a week or two of military training, it in fact lasts much of the year.
Her agency had learned that the threat of physical and sexual abuse was causing increasing numbers of students to drop out rather than attend. But by failing to complete their service, they put themselves at constant risk of arrest.
Unlike North Korea, there’s no threat to the international order. Eritrea’s economy is about one-fifteenth the size of the tiny European nation of Luxembourg, to give it some perspective. It has no nuclear weapons and has not really played any significant role in global politics at all.
Though the Eritrea People’s Liberation Front started as a Marxist resistance movement, the state now has less of a grounding ideology, unlike North Korea’s homegrown Juche.
The Eritrean case doesn’t grasp the imagination as much as either North Korea or Syria, but it’s one of the least pleasant places in the world to live, and its refugees are without a doubt some of the most genuine in the world.
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God but that is a depressing read.
God left Africa long time ago the whole place is a disaster
Indeed and people are justified in fleeing such a horrible regime but that doesn’t mean that Europe is obliged to take them all in. They should flee to the nearest safe African country (they do exist). Once they are safe, if they then look to move on further (to Europe for example) then they become economic migrants whether people like it or not
I’m sorry to say this but it looks like these people can’t govern themselves. The whole area has been in turmoil since the Europeans left. Its time for them to be a colony again.
Well done to the Wall Street Journal for documenting another African state and its problems with governance. No doubt the vast untapped natural resources of gold, potash, oil and natural gas hasn’t escaped their attention either. I wonder if their main export was brussels sprouts would so many in the Wall Street Journal care?
John colonialism is the answer to Africas problems? Thats not a serios suggestion is it? You couldnt possibly mean that could you?
@Michael. If you have any experience of Africa besides holidays you would know that I am very serious.
Really John, and should the UK come back in here to sort us out?
Erirtrea may be a basket case but the country it split away from Ethiopia has an economy growing at double digit figures (albiet from a low base) and even opened a metro in the capital last week, something we can’t manage here..
Africans looked at how Europeans governed them by taking what they wanted by force if needed, and learned from that. It will take more than a few generations for them to learn that being in charge isn’t about grabbing everything for yourself at the expense of the country
An informative but depressing article. Makes you appreciative of the standards of living we enjoy in the West. The African continent is always way down the agenda of the administrations of most countries, if they are even interested at all.
Why migrants feel they are entitled to clime a place in Europe. How it happened that Europe got a reputation of free meal land.
Why do we feel entitled to deny them entry !
Natasha, why did European countries (UK, Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal etc) feeling entitled to colonise Africa, strip great deal of wealth from the country and create so much social and political instability?
Why has Europe and the west felt entitled to develop global trade rules that keep us rich while making it structurally difficult for many African nations to develop their economies?
@lizzy,
Er, maybe it’s because it’s OUR country.
Gimme a break.
Same way people in other parts of Europe heard about Ireland and came here Natasha?
While I am not fan of African migrants flooding Europe I have not forgotten that it was European countries that carved up and plundered Africa………….
Refugees are not the problem – it’s economic migrants coming in on their coattails, masquerading as refugees.
People in impoverished conditions believe that when they go to Europe, they will get a house and a car, along with all the trappings of modern life magically when they arrive- according to the success stories peddled by other immigrants, bigging themselves up.
they borrow heavily from friends and family, pay trafficking gangs -including ISIS – thousands for the passage and get a heavy dose of reality when they arrive in a Europe during an almost decade-long financial struggle.
I can imagine in these circumstances how an impoverished and heavily-indebted immigrant to Europe becomes radicalised.
@The Green Monkey,
Ireland didn’t.
Africa cant keep using colonization as an excuse anymore and we, currently, have nothing to feel guilty about. They/we cant keep blaming what happened in the past. Many countries have had colonial rule (america, Canada, Australia, new Zealand etc) These african, poor excuse for a country type countries are led by tin pot despots and kept going by charity funds raised by bleeding heart liberals from the west. Most of the aid money raised ends up in hands of corrupt politicians, govt employees, police military etc. very, very little gets to where its meant to.
I’m heartily sick of listening to sob stories from africa, nothing changes, ever!!
I agree with Stephen, we can’t keep blaming historical mistakes for current problems, there has literally been billions of aid poured into Africa which has been squandered. At what point is ok for other countries in the world to say we’re going to stop pouring aid into a bottomless bucket with multiple holes in it, it clearly isn’t working?
An ex-North African official said recently that several North African Countries have been taken over by terrorist type groups, some with leanings towards ISIS. They are selling vast quantities of oil on the black market and shipping literally crate loads of money across the Med to European banks, all of this is known but a blind eye is turned to it. It was also claimed that the recent surge in immigrants was promoted by some of these terrorist groups both as a means of smuggling their own people into Europe among the chaos and as a method of overwhelming European countries. We’re already beginning to see the effects of this in parts of southern and eastern Europe.
I recently watched a news report in which an American UN official tut tutted and began to lecture about how Europe must open its borders to these immigrants. The hypocrisy was amazing, his own country has walls on it’s borders with armed guards and regularly shoots anyone attempting to cross. What’s the point of having borders if an immigrant can choose to travel across a continent to any country they wish and, once there, demand free housing, social welfare, healthcare and the holy grail, free education.
I watched a Sky News report yesterday from Macedonia in which a young Syrian refugee spoke passionately about how he had travelled through Greece and intended to travel to Sweden or Germany. He wanted his education, his life and, basically, nobody was going to stop him, he, and others like him, are coming.
It seems they are intent on getting to one of the 26 Schengen Area countries, once there passport and border controls are not needed and they can pass freely throughout Europe. Manna from heaven. This is why Hungary is building a 110 mile fence costing $35 million to keep migrants out.
These are not people fleeing from persecution and seeking asylum in the first safe haven they land in, as the laws of asylum demand, rather they’re economic migrants using the excuse of persecution to cherry pick which countries they want to go to. Yes, they’re willing to risk life and limb in order to choose a life in a different country, a risk they clearly feel is worth it. But this is circumventing the laws of immigration, and several others, and once they’re in their chosen countries what then, do they petition to change other laws too?
Probably for the same reason European powers felt they could claim African countries as their own over the past couple of hundred years. But hey that was ok, wasn’t it!?
Most African countries have been independent for long enough to develop themselves. You can’t keep blaming former colonisers. Americans and the Japanese don’t blame each other for their problems. Neither does the UK and Germany.
African countries are lost causes due to their lack of political stability, human rights, rule of law, education and free trade. If those things are improved, then they’ll get better.
@Boyne Sharky
Stephen made a claim that “most” development aid is lost. The upper end estimates are that 30% of all development aid is lost through corruption.
That’s obviously a massive problem but saying “most” suits a narrative that Stephen has created for himself but this narrative is not based on facts or the reality of the situation.
The other lie/falsehood he is peddling is that “nothing changes, ever”. This is also not true and it’s not hard to read the progress reports on the previous UN development goals to see that parts of Africa are are making progress on a number of development goals.
The simplistic narrative Stephen is pushing ignores the combined problem of political corruption and exploitation of that instability by Western businesses. There are a number of reports that estimate the amount if tax avoided by multinational companies operating in Africa in the tens of billions.
These issues combined with the rigged international trade rule show that the reality of the situation is way more complex than Stephen’s bitter little right wing fantasy portrays
@Natasha Nk
Read up on colonial history. Seriously.
@stopit. Why are Muslims continuing to colonize and enslave Black Africans?
–”We need to remind ourselves that Arab settler colonialism in Africa began with the Arab invasion of Egypt in 640 A.D. and persists today
in Mauritania, Sudan and all of North Africa. The Arab settler colonies in East Africa (Zanzibar, Mombassa etc) predate by centuries the
Dutch settler colony in Cape Town. Also, from 1821-1956, Egypt was a classic, European-type colonial ruler in Sudan. Thus, Arab
colonialism in Africa is no figment of the imagination. And it persists today in different guises. Unlike European colonialism, it is not even
in nominal retreat. The Arabs in Africa are colonialists and are even now, with great determination, expanding their territories.—”
http://www.houseofknowledge.org.uk/new/doc/Colonialism%20–Arab%20and%20European%20Compared.pdf
@Patrick……. A wee bit more on current Arab Islamic colonization of Africa.
—”el Tawaja el Hadhariya—the Arab civilizational project in
Africa:
“ We certainly cannot, under any conditions, relinquish our
responsibility to help spread the light of knowledge and civilization
to the very depth of the virgin jungles of the continent . . .. Africa is
now the scene of a strange and stirring turmoil . . . We cannot . . .
stand as mere onlookers, deluding ourselves into believing that we
are in no way concerned. . .”—[Nasser in Philosophy of the Revolution,
(1954), quoted in The Arabs & Africa, London: Croom Helm, 1985, p.91]
This Nasser doctrine of an Arab-Islamic civilizing mission in black
Africa would be the altruistic-sounding, self-serving cover for the
Arab expansionist ambition (1) to bring the entire Nile headwaters
under Arab rule; (2) to conquer, enslave, Islamize and Arabize
black Africans, as through the war on South Sudan; (3) to annex
black African lands, as in Libya’s long campaign to annex Chad’s
Auzou strip; and (4) to ethnic cleanse and change the demographic
character of black African lands by importing Arab settlers, as in
Darfur, Nubia and Mauritania today. Arabs would civilize black Africans by inflicting on them war, gang rape of boys and women,
genocide, and land expropriation. This Nasser doctrine, lik e the
White Man’s Burden of the Europeans, “cloaked [Arab
imperialism] with a mantle of idealistic devotion to duty.” –
http://www.houseofknowledge.org.uk/new/doc/Colonialism%20–Arab%20and%20European%20Compared.pdf
Give it a rest patrick, we know you don’t like muslims.
Did one call you names when you were a baby?
Africans need to sort their continent out. The filthy corrupt regimes may be a legacy of colonialism, but the stagnation and failure cannot be solely blamed on circumstance. There are generations of educated Africans now, and children of first generation emigrants to developed countries who are schooled and wealthy. They should have a responsibility to the people in their home countries, to use their education and experience to make them better.
The issues of political corruption and conflict are all very real but it is simplistic to say that it is only the responsibility of Africa to sort itself out.
We still have a system of trade rules and subsidies that are rigged in favour of the west to the detriment of parts of Africa
http://www.un.org/press/en/2012/gaef3345.doc.htm
Some of these issues could be worsened by TTIP etc.
I didn’t say they would have to do it on their own, but they need to do a lot more. The reality is that that system of trade rules, subsidies and crooked deals will remain in place until African countries can get their act together and work together for their own best interests. Waiting for things to change from domestic pressure on Western governments is a waste of time. Look at the contempt that the elite has for the lower strata of society at home, you can be assured that they hold the lower strata of African societies in even lower regard.
Nobody is going to do it for you – get the finger out, Africa.
Gaddafi wanted to introduce the gold dinar as an all African currency. He also wanted the middle east to trade oil in the dinar. This would have had a huge economic shift of wealth to Africa and would have devalued the dollar and Euro massively. We all know what happened to him
Imagine Irish farmers can sell their products in African supermarkets cheaper than an African farmer. Its called export subsidys. The EU pays farmers (mostly Irish and French) the difference, allowing our farmers to undercut African farmers. The we get upset when African farmers can’t make a living and decide to move over here.
http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/agri-foodindustry/marketsupports/exportrefunds/
We don’t realize how lucky we are.
@jane,
We’re better than Eritrea, well hurrah for that.
Very true Jane , we live in peace , and we are free . we are indeed very lucky especially our children to live in Ireland
They’ve also thrown out most of the aid organisations. I know a few Eritreans and they are lovely – very community oriented and friendly. It’s shocking to see kids like theirs being taken dead from the sea off Italy in news reports.
It’s time for a military coup
What was also interesting is that it’s on a power with Saudi Arabia when it comes to levels of freedom. Yet what’s the west’s favourite nation in the Arab world?
UAE?
@Anne Marie Devlin. We should remember that ’twas not only oil that made Saudi Arabia but also it was a great slave-trading centre at one time.
–”So interwoven is slavery with Islam that Islams’ holiest city, Mecca (site of the Haj pilgrimage), was a slave trading capital. Quoting Azumah again, up until the 20th century, Mecca served as the gateway to the Muslim world for slaves brought out of Africa. “It became a custom for pilgrims to take slaves for sale in Mecca or buy one or two slaves while on Haj as souvenirs to be kept, sold or given as gifts
Read more at: http://www.modernghana.com/news/249409/1/arabs-mortal-hatred-and-enslavement-of-the-black-r.html
Still at it patrick
i read somewhere once that the most vehement homophobes were infact closet homosexuals in denial, are you sure that deep down you are not an imam?
@matty reese. Is what you read somewhere a projection of where you are at now? Otherwise why broach!
Cue the red thumbs and the racist accusations but why the hell do they have so many kids? Religion? Boredom? Lack of birth control (then don’t have sex)? I’d only if I could afford them. Genuine question, by the way.
A combination of factors, religion, poverty etc.
One of the issues I remember learning in secondary school was that because child mortality rates were so high and people were poor they tended towards larger families as a form of social protection.
These issues can be hard to shake off. i.e. Ireland still has the highest birthrate in the EU even though many of the social and economic factors that drove us to have large families have faded i.e. religion, poverty, lack of education etc.
Marty obviously doesn’t remember Ireland in the 50′s then
Well it is a good thing that Ireland has a high birth rate proportionately to other EU nations. Europe needs to increase its native population.
Is that a fact, Stephen? How about instead people have as many children as they want, no more no less and not worry about reproducing to cheer ypu up.
They could steal your computer for a start
Teaching numbskulls like you a thing or two about humanity maybe !
Dispicable comment Eamon McGowan. People have always migrated throughout history due to economic or political circumstances. Nothing new here. The places they are leaving are uninhabitable therfore they go elsewhere. Europe is Eden in their eyes. What would you do?
@Karl O Neill,
OK then, so we bring in every poverty stricken African who wants to come here?
Personally I would stay and fight to make my country a better place.
Europe can’t take in everyone.
Eamon McGowan what do you know about the women in that picture. I suggest that all you know about these women is that they are black and from africa. So you judge people on their colour and where they are from? Thats called racism and while that may be acceptable to your friends in the fascist Front National and Identity Ireland, its a dispicable way of judging people.
I don’t think it proves your point at all but I suppose it did give you the opportunity to use “facile”in a sentence well done big man !
That could be us if SF ever got into power.
Mr McGowan do you know why I brought ‘the R word’ into it? Because what you said was racist.
Michael O’connor, Good man yourself, first one to bring the R word into it.
It’e great you had time to post it, as I can only assume you’re getting the spare room ready for them to move into.
@lorem @ lizzy,
Both of you gave facile answers, which kind of proves my point.
Now if Eritrea discovered large oil reserves and acquired nuclear capacity the world might take an interest.
I was thinking the same, the good ole U.S. of A. could go in and save the day
How about instead of joking about the USA as the world police, we actually petition our governments to take proactive action for a change.
Has anybody considered what Africa would be today if those dreadful Eurpean colonialists had not been there.
Just bush and desert not even roads. Would the blacks be better off??
@Brian O Cinneide. Has anyone considered what Africa would be like today if those dreadful Muslim slave-traders had not been there?
–”After the Arabs had conquered Egypt and shortly after Muhammad’s death, they began demanding Nubian slaves from the south. This continued for 600 years. Dominated African kingdoms were forced to send on a regular basis, tributes of slaves to the Arab ruler in Cairo. From as early as the 6th century CE, they had developed slavery supply networks out of Africa, from the Sahara to the Red Sea and from Ethiopia, Somalia and East Africa, to feed demands for slaves all over the Islamic world and the Indian Ocean region. The African male slaves were castrated and used as domestic servants or to work the Sahara salt deposits or on farms all over the Islamic world.
The African female servants were continuously raped before being sold to households to be used as sex labour. Of springs from the illicit encounters were largely destroyed as unworthy to live. Between 650 CE and 1905 CE, over 20, 000,000 African slaves had been delivered through the Tans-Sahara route alone to the Islamic world. Dr. John Alembellah Azumah in his book: The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa estimates that over 80 million more died en-route. A text from Dr. Azumah books, provides this quote from a Zanzibar observer about the travails of African slaves en-route to slave markets around the Arabic world.—”
http://www.modernghana.com/news/249409/1/arabs-mortal-hatred-and-enslavement-of-the-black-r.html
More waffle patrick, you really need to find a new hobby, this obsession of yours is deeply disturbing.
I suppose when you’re faced with complete ignorance and lack of perspective people can often see a bit of racist showing too.
Personally I don’t like to use the word because it always results in the kind of replies that say “you used that word and now I have an excuse to put my fingers in my ears and shout like a child”.
The sad thing about your position Eamon is that you suggest that a persons worth is measured by their contribution – along with the suggestion that no matter what the hardship, unless people can “pick themselves up by their bootstraps” then they aren’t worth helping.
This is exactly the kind of hyper capitalist kind of view that has only contributed to inequality.
I was going to say that you can now ask the predictable “what are you doing for them” – but I note you’ve used that childish, unrealistic and irrelevant one already.
Eamon, based on what you know from looking at their photo, what contribution do you think they could make?
Michael O’connor,
Not racist, I just call things as I see them. You’re in for a huge shock if you think all cultures are of equal value.
Where are the leftists now? Time for military intervention I think. We can’t take on all the refugees from Africa’s problem nations but we can set the ball rolling.
It wouldn’t take long for our forces to decimate theirs. Its not the ideal solution but neither is taking in everybody. Just look at the cost to welfare in the Netherlands for example and proportion of non-EU nationals on welfare.
From the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics. This has to stop or we will lose what they desire and travel to Europe for.
@Tony Canning,
Totally wrong. I care deeply about my own people who have suffered so much from this savage austerity over the last several years.
Let’s look after them before looking after people from Eritrea.
Thanks, @secondcaptains!
Tony, the issue for me isn’t that he sees value in a person’s contribution but that it might be possible to judge a person’s value by looking at their photo.
If you are able to judge someone’s value and possible contribution to society by looking at a photo, you have to ask what criteria you are using because you most certainly don’t know a single thing about their personality, their skills, their experience, their education.
We can only assume that Eamon is making a judgement based on the colour of their skin, where they are from and the clothes they are wearing.
I’m not sure if that’s the case but I have asked him to answer his own question to get a better idea.
The Eritrean situation shows how stupid Eritreans are – they wouldn’t be in this situation if they hadn’t fought for independence from Ethiopia.
Mr MacGowan you decided based on their colour and where they were from that these women have nothing to offer. Its very simple if you cant understand. Judging people on thir colour is racism.
have your say