Eritrea: Little Corona but Plagued by Fear

 

When Israel’s next ambassador to Eritrea presents his credentials to President Isaias Afwerki, he will discover a tiny country barely touched by the Coronavirus but plagued by a thousand social ills.

The problems span raging human  rights’ abuses to massive rates of female genital mutilation and on to wafer-thin peace agreements with its neighbours in Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti.

 

What’s more, Bedouin Ishmael Khaldi will find he is part of a Muslim minority and that Sami Cohen, the country’s one remaining native Jew, maintains the synagogue and Jewish cemetery in the capital, Asmara while managing a private business.

Israel and Eritrea have developed good relations since the latter gained independence in 1993 and President Afwerki has received medical treatment in Israel.

However, his country haemorrhages  an almost constant mixed flow of economic migrants and refugees, thousands of whom enter Israel illegally  where they are grudgingly given bus passes to Tel Aviv.

There  they are expected to fend for themselves and in order to exist immediately enter the black economy as they can provide no official proof of identity.

No wonder  the  Afwerki regime rejoices in a strong friendship with Israel and refuses to recognise ‘Palestine’ in complete contradistinction to nearby Arab countries.

This is because – despite the heinous bullying tactics the authorities use against citizens they deem troublesome - they realise they may offload them on to the Jewish state where they send sympathisers to spy on them.

Meanwhile Khaldi, a devoted family man, who is much cherished by the Jewish and non-Jewish Anglo-Zionist communities in Israel, the UK and USA, will assume the posting held currently by Ambassador Gadi Harpaz this autumn.

 

© Natalie Wood (11 July 2020)