Eritrea
One of the world's most closed states, shaped by decades of conflict, indefinite conscription, and a government that has never held an election.
One of the world's most closed states, shaped by decades of conflict, indefinite conscription, and a government that has never held an election.
Eritrea is one of the most closed and least understood countries in the world. Since independence from Ethiopia in 1993, it has been governed by Isaias Afwerki and the People's Front for Democracy and Justice, a party that has never held a national election, suspended its constitution before it came into force, and maintained a system of indefinite national service that functions, by most independent assessments, as a form of forced labour. The result is a country that exports a significant share of its population every year: somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000 Eritreans now live outside the country, one of the highest emigration rates per capita in the world.
Eritrea's foreign policy has long been defined by grievance and suspicion. The unresolved border dispute with Ethiopia following the 1998 to 2000 war kept the two countries in a costly no-war-no-peace stalemate for nearly two decades. The 2018 peace deal with Abiy Ahmed ended that stalemate, but the underlying territorial questions remain unresolved. Eritrea's decision to fight alongside Ethiopian federal forces during the Tigray conflict brought it international condemnation and renewed sanctions, but also the military satisfaction of seeing its most direct enemy, the TPLF, broken as a fighting force.
Understanding Eritrea requires understanding a government that treats external pressure as confirmation of its own narrative: that Eritrea is a country under siege, and that only the PFDJ can protect it. That narrative has costs, measured in the lives of people who cross the Sahara to escape it, and in a country whose enormous potential remains locked behind closed borders.
The TPLF is broken and the border is open. But the war cost Eritrea internationally. Yared K Senbeto assesses what Isaias Afwerki actually gained and what he gave away.
The 2% tax, PFDJ networks abroad, a community divided, and what it all means for a country where a third of the population has left.
Abiy Ahmed wants Red Sea access. Eritrea controls Assab. The port question sits at the heart of the post-Tigray relationship between the two governments.
Egypt has moved closer to Eritrea and Somalia as part of its campaign against Ethiopia's Nile Dam. Horn Updates traces the diplomatic logic.
Ethiopia's two-year civil war, one of the deadliest of the 21st century. Its causes, catastrophic human cost, and Eritrea's central role in it.
How Ethiopia's push for a coastline reshapes its relationship with Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somaliland — and why Assab is at the centre of it.