Eritrea - June 2023

In a report delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Council on 20 June, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Eritrea described a deterioration in freedom of religion in the country. The report, which covered the period between April 2022 and April 2023, detailed ‘renewed waves of arrests’ of adherents of denominations not recognised by the state and of religious leaders critical of the country’s human rights record. It estimated that at the end of the reporting period over 400 Christians were being arbitrarily detained. Elsewhere, the report described an upsurge in forced conscriptions into the military between mid- and late 2022, which was carried out using increasingly coercive methods, including the torture and forced eviction of families of draft dodgers. The upsurge was driven by Eritrea’s involvement in the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray province that was formally ended by a peace deal signed in November 2022.

Sources: United Nations (1), United Nations (2)