Eritrea's government denies catastrophe

Deeply concerned about the situation of the people in Eritrea, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) appealed to the government in Asmara on Tuesday to cooperate with international aid organizations and permit food aid to enter the country. "We assume that the state of emergency in Eritrea is about as bad as that in neighboring Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia," asserted the head of the Africa section at the STP, Ulrich Delius, on Tuesday in Göttingen. "We are alarmed that Eritrea's authorities are not asking for aid from other countries. We would point out that a government which, like that of North Korea, consciously lets its people starve for political reasons is committing crimes against humanity."

Satellite photographs clearly show that Eritrea is suffering a similar drought to that affecting neighboring countries. In addition, refugees arriving in Ethiopia and Djibouti from Eritrea have spoken of a dramatic situation in their home country. In July 2011 alone, in spite of the well secured border between the two enemy countries, some 1,000 Eritrean refugees reached Ethiopia. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is assuming that by the end of the year at least 20,000 more Eritreans will seek asylum in Ethiopia. 

Just last Thursday Yemane Ghebreab, a close associate of Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki, denied the existence of the famine in this Horn of Africa country. "There is no food shortage in Eritrea at the present time," said Ghebreab. "Last year, we had a bumper harvest. We have also built up our reserves in terms of food stocks by importing food, so we will be ready for any emergency." In contrast, the Africa section at the STP warns: "Famine does not stop at national borders. When the drought has catastrophic consequences for farmers and nomads throughout the region, then even the best food reserves will not be enough to solve the problem in a perennially impoverished country like Eritrea."

Approximately one-third of the five million residents of Eritrea have suffered for years from malnutrition and hunger. The STP accuses the autocratic government of Eritrea of routinely denying emergency situations to avoid becoming dependent on foreign aid. When the Nabro volcano in the Denkalia region erupted on 12 June 2011 and triggered an earthquake, authorities claimed for weeks that no one had been harmed as a consequence. Far too late it was admitted that at least 31 people had been killed in the natural disaster and 48,000 people had to be relocated or provided with emergency aid.