The United Nations on Wednesday said Eritrea’s government is guilty of committing crimes against humanity since independence a quarter-century ago with up to 400,000 people enslaved.
“Crimes against humanity have been committed in a general and systematic way in Eritrea,” said the Commission of Inquiry on violations of human rights in Eritrea, in its 2nd report since its establishment in 2014 by the Council of the United Nations Human Rights.
The Commission interviewed 833 Eritreans in exile and gathered evidence against officials suspected of committing these crimes against humanity such as slavery, torture, deprivation of liberty, forced disappearances, persecution, rape and murder.
Eritrea, which has 6.5 million inhabitants, “is an authoritarian state, there is no independent judiciary, no National Assembly and no democratic institutions (…) there is a climate of impunity for crimes against humanity committed for a quarter century,” chief UN investigator Mike Smith told journalists in Geneva.
About 5,000 Eritreans risk their lives each month trying to flee the nation where forcible army conscription can last decades.
“Very few Eritreans are ever released from their military service obligations,” Smith said.
Responding to the report, an adviser to President Isaias Afewerki, Yemane Gebreah, said in Geneva that the “investigation Commission has no tangible evidence or legal basis to support these extreme and unfounded accusations.”
According to the Eritrean official, “the methodology of the Commission of Inquiry is so flawed that it seriously compromises its statements and makes its findings null and void.”
The 26-page report will be discussed on June 21 before the next session of the Council for Human Rights.