Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for urgent action to be taken over an intensive forced conscription campaign carried out by the government of Eritrea in recent months.
HRW, in a statement, noted that the government has punished relatives of thousands of alleged draft evaders as part of an intensive forced conscription campaign.
It claimed that Eritrean security forces have been heavily involved in operations in support of the Ethiopian government since the outbreak of conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region in November 2020, and have carried out some of the conflict’s worst abuses.
‘Eritrean authorities have conducted waves of roundups in Eritrea to identify people it considers draft evaders or deserters’, the statement read.
‘Since September 2022, when Ethiopian and Eritrean forces carried out joint offensives in the Tigray region, the Eritrean government has inflicted further repression, punishing family members of those seeking to avoid conscription or recall, to enforce widespread forced mobilization, including of older men.
‘Such punishment has included arbitrary detentions and home expulsions’.
HRW Deputy Africa Director, Laetitia Bader, said Eritrea’s government has detained and expelled older people and women with young children from their homes in order to find draft invaders or deserters to fill its dwindling ranks.
It is understood that the country’s policy of indefinite national service, including compulsory military conscription, has been central to the government’s broader repression of its population since the 1998 to 2001 border war with Ethiopia, and its aftermath.
HRW called on international and regional officials to take concrete measures against Eritrea’s leadership for the ongoing repression.
It called for the adoption and maintenance of targeted sanctions against individuals and entities responsible for serious human abuses inside Eritrea.
Bader said Eritreans from all walks of life are bearing the brunt of the government’s repressive tactics, hence Eritrea’s regional partners and international actors should take action to end rampant repression.
Development Diaries reports that Freedom House rated Eritrea ‘not free’ in its 2022 Freedom in the World report on political rights and civil liberties, with the country earning 03 points out of a possible 100.
Source: HRW
Photo source: BBC
