Human Rights Watch called Thursday for targeted sanctions against Eritrea, accusing its government of rounding up thousands of people, including minors, for mandatory military service and punishing the families of suspected draft evaders.
One of the world’s most authoritarian states, Eritrea has a notorious policy of universal, indefinite conscription.
The closed Horn of Africa nation initially used its 1998-2000 war against Ethiopia to justify the policy which remains in place despite a peace agreement signed in 2018.
HRW said the latest wave of “ruthless” conscription started last year, with Eritrea’s army supporting Ethiopian forces during the federal government’s war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Eritrean troops have been accused by the United States and rights groups of some of the worst atrocities in the two-year conflict, including the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Tigray.
In September, Eritrean authorities called for its armed forces to mobilize after renewed fighting shattered an earlier truce between Ethiopia’s government and the TPLF.
HRW said security forces set up checkpoints throughout the country to net recruits and went door to door to identify draft evaders.
Witnesses interviewed by the US-based rights watchdog said those who could not account for their draft-eligible relatives were expelled from their homes and detained.
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Abusive national service system
“Struggling to fill its dwindling fighting ranks, Eritrea’s government has detained and expelled older people and women with young children from their homes in order to find people it considers draft evaders or deserters,” HRW’s Horn of Africa director Laetitia Bader said in a statement.
Eritreans from all walks of life are bearing the brunt of the government’s repressive tactics.”
The reprisals have continued this year, with satellite imagery showing large crowds at a prison northeast of the capital Asmara, HRW said, adding that relatives reported many men being taken from the prison to the front lines.
“Everyone has always lived with the dreadful feeling of the risk of being conscripted, but this is at a whole different level,” an Asmara resident said.
Rights groups have accused Eritrea of forcing citizens to spend years in national service and punishing any act of desertion or perceived disobedience with jail and torture.
HRW said Eritrean leaders should be subject to global sanctions for the “ongoing repression” and urged scrutiny by the United Nations Human Rights Council and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
“Eritrea’s regional partners, including Horn of Africa and Gulf states, should press Eritrea to ensure meaningful changes to the abusive national service system,” HRW said.
The war in northern Ethiopia ended with a peace deal signed last November, but Eritrea was not a party to the agreement and its troops continue to be present in Tigray, according to residents.
