Eritrean regime uses coronavirus to starve its people

[ad_1]

Eritrea’s regime uses coronavirus to starve its people

By Petros Tesfagiorgis: Founding Member of Eritrea Focus

Photo: Hiwot Magazine: UK Eritrean Elders Welfare Association (EEWA).

In order to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the Eritrean government has forced its people into a lockdown and is not providing any help to sustain their daily lives. As a result, people who were already poor are now starving. It is the responsibility of the United Nations and the international community to acknowledge this dire situation and hold the Eritrean regime to account. The government must help these destitute and helpless people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The regime must call for and accept international assistance to meet the needs of the Eritrean people during this difficult and worrying time.

Disturbing news for the Afar people of Eritrea

By Paolo Lambruschi Friday, June 5, 2020 Source: L’ Avvenier: Google Translated from Italian:

The Afar region is located in the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest regions in the world. But the region is rich in mineral (potash) resources. Danakali Ltd, headquartered in Subiaco, Australia, has been exploring for potash fertilizers in the region and recently announced that it will start production in 2023. The company is listed on the London and Australian stock exchanges and is backed by several large British financial institutions and other institutions.

The Asmara regime has confiscated Afar lands and has ruthlessly persecuted the Afar people for years – hundreds have been forced off their ancestral lands, arrested, and recently even deprived of food (a classic example of the Eritrean government using food as a weapon – extremely sad and despicable).

Two months, 300,000 people live under siege by the Eritrean regime The area was quarantined, shops were closed, sick people were denied access to health facilities, food supplies were cut off, fishing and sheep farming were banned – all abnormal measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

On Sunday, 30-year-old Halima Mohammed died in the Bada crater area. The pregnant woman bled to death from a miscarriage on Sunday, May 31, and was left alone without medical assistance. In this silence, many other women and children may have died of hunger and disease. There is no internet in the area and only 20% has water and electricity. Of course, many parents end up in notorious Eritrean prisons in their quest to provide for their families.

“My people – said Ibrahim Ahmed, spokesman for Rsahro – About 300,000 people have traditionally made their living from fishing, sheep farming and salt mining. Camel transport. Over the years, The (Eritrean) government has been hampering economic development and misusing food and medicine, but since April 2 it has sealed its borders with Ethiopia and Djibouti The people of Afar were not provided with any means of survival. A siege followed by a battle for food supply.

Then, in mid- to late-May, they arrested dozens of desperate fishermen who were out at sea to feed their families — and the government seized their boats. The whereabouts of those arrested are unknown. Food shipments from Djibouti and Ethiopia seized The camel caravans have arrested all the camel owners. The Afar people demanded the lifting of the siege and asked for urgent intervention from neighboring countries and humanitarian organizations to save the Danakil from famine. People asked what the reason for this hostility was? But they did not get an answer from the Eritrean government.

Pain and suffering of Eritreans in prison:

The European External Policy Adviser EEPA reported the news on its website “: Amnesty International reports that thousands of Eritreans held in official and unofficial prisons are vulnerable to COVID-19 due to overcrowding, poor medical care, and a lack of sanitation and hygiene options. Prisons are overcrowded and lack basic infrastructure to accommodate prisoners, with few toilets, showers, or places to wash clothes, and detainees sleep on the bare floor as beds or mattresses (and shoes or slippers) are prohibited. Detainees and their families mostly pay for medication, meals, and hygiene products out of their own pockets, but the COVID-19 lockdown has cut off these supplies.

More frightening news from Eritrea confirms Amnesty International’s fears. This is the J-studio website with links to clandestine organizations in Eritrea. They report that relatives who sent food to prisoners in Adi Abeito and Mai Surwa are now forbidden to do so. As a result, the prisoners are sentenced to death by starvation.

What should we do to free the Eritrean people from hunger?

Billions of dollars worth of aid is being provided by rich countries to poor countries to help them fight the coronavirus. With such goodwill and cooperation, the people of Eritrea should not have to face hunger. Yet, the Eritrean government is deliberately refusing to accept aid in order to let its own people starve. Therefore, the starvation in the country is man-made and completely preventable if the regime would act wisely. This is part of Isaias’ policy of waging war on innocent people. The regime has shown its despicable behavior time and again – Eritrean lives do not matter. This is irresponsible behavior by the president. This time action must be taken and everything must be done to stop this behavior.

The United Nations has the primary responsibility to stop Isaias from starving innocent people to death. But the UN has remained silent and uncaring about the plight of the suffering Eritrean people. The UN has even ignored its own Commission of Inquiry’s damning report on Eritrea. Presenting his findings in June 2015, Mike Smith said: “Many of the human rights violations in Eritrea are of a scope and scale rarely seen anywhere else in the world today. Fundamental freedoms are restricted, from movement to expression, from religion to association. The Commission found that crimes against humanity may have occurred in the context of torture, extrajudicial killings, forced labour and national service.”1

Despite this, the United Nations allowed Eritrea to become a member of the UN Human Rights Commission. This abhorrent act condones the oppression of the Eritrean people by the unelected Eritrean government.

Regardless of what the UN did or did not do in the past, Eritrean justice seekers in the diaspora demand that the UN challenge the regime, stop starving its people, and put an end to Eritrea’s grave human rights violations, which have resulted in an influx of refugees into the region, Europe, and other parts of the world.

For the Eritrean people, peace is priceless. When Eritrea and Ethiopia signed the peace agreement, they thought their dream had come true. Unfortunately, this has not been achieved and the peace agreement has proven that it is worthless. Instead, the so-called peace agreement gave Isaias the opportunity to interfere in Ethiopia’s internal affairs and he conspired with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to attack the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Isaias is not a peace-loving man and he lives in conflict and division. This is dangerous for Eritrea and the entire region. Isaias wasted the opportunity to achieve real peace with Ethiopia and his own people. I hope that the United Nations will recognize its mistakes and cannot be used by Isaias again. The United Nations has failed the Eritrean people and they cannot repeat the same mistakes. Now, it is the responsibility of the United Nations not to remain silent as the regime embarks on an even more dangerous journey to annihilate the Eritrean people.

Eritreans in exile can plead with the United Nations to exercise its moral authority and global responsibility to act urgently and convince the Eritrean regime to cooperate and provide life-saving aid to the people. The regime must be stopped from deliberately starving its people. It seems that the UN and the EU think that extending the mandate of the Special Rapporteur will do a lot to help the people. But they have failed to acknowledge Isaias’s plot to exterminate the people by starving them to death. This madness should be of concern not only to Eritreans but to the entire international community. This is not a tsunami, it is Isaias who created it, and the tsunami can be prevented by stopping Isaias from continuing to create tsunamis.

In accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 41/1.

Special Rapporteur Daniela Kravitz, Submitted her report. The report reads as follows:The Eritrean government has not improved its gross human rights violations against the Eritrean people. She confirmed her findings, saying “UNHCR says 9,000 Eritreans, 30% of them children, sought asylum in Tigray in the first quarter of 2020. The Special Rapporteur has not been allowed to visit Eritrea. The UN has not reacted. By extending the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, the UN gave Isaias a year’s grace period to continue his evil plans. Considering what is happening in the Afar region, prisons and areas where people are being held without any help, this is genocide by other means.

UK Parliament hears concerns over human rights in Eritrea: Martin Plaut. Now that British MPs have returned to work, they are discussing the dire human rights situation in Eritrea by asking a series of questions to ministers. The British government has expressed its strong support for the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea to continue his work. When the UN and the British government received reports of continued human rights violations, they intentionally or unintentionally did not question Isaias. Eritrea is facing an emergency to save people’s lives. They don’t care about it. They just want to show that they care by showing support for the rapporteur who was not allowed to visit Eritrea.
There is another incident that shows that the regime is starving its people. Paolo Lambruschi writes above: “The Eritrean authorities refused to provide food aid to the people brought by the Emirati sailors, to whom Asmara has leased a port base.” The Afar people live in an area where they can make a living by fishing and trading.
Halima Mohammed, a 30-year-old woman from Badar, Afar state, died during childbirth due to lack of medical assistance. She was a victim of the closure of 29 health centers run by the Roman Catholic Church in 2019.

However, to be fair, I do not place the blame solely on the UN, the EU and the UK government. The blame should be placed on all those who seek justice. We are not action-oriented. The West has a lobbying system, but we do not use it. This can be achieved through paid professional lobbyists. The Eritrean government paid a large sum of money to Cohen in the US to convince the US government to sympathize with the Eritrean regime. It was with the strong lobbying of the Ethiopian diaspora that the Senate passed a resolution condemning the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front government for violating human rights in Ethiopia and jailing journalists.

A month ago, I wrote an article titled Call to diaspora to take action as Eritrea crisis loomsI’ve gotten a lot of interest from individuals – some of them retired professionals – who have said that as elders we can make a difference in lobbying government: there is hope and we will continue to discuss this.

important Notice: The Red Sea Afar Human Rights Group (RSAHR) announced that it will hold a protest in front of the Eritrean Embassy in London on Saturday, June 20, 2020

Address: 9 White Lion Street, Angel – London N1 9PF Time: 2:30pm to 5:30pm. They are calling on all Eritreans to join them

Eritrea Focus expresses solidarity with our Afar brothers and sisters:

——- Finish——-