Eritrea has long been isolated by the West, while the government in capital Asmara has itself pursued a policy of political and economic seclusion. The country acquired geopolitical significance this year due to its 1,000 km coastline along the Red Sea shipping route

Eritrea severed diplomatic ties with Ethiopia and alleged “deplorable acts of hostility" by its neighbor, which is battling a rebellion in its northern Tigray region on their common border

#Eritrea#: 25 years. That's how long Dawit Isaak and his colleagues have been detained incommunicado. They hold the world record for journalists with the longest pre-trial detention. RSF and 133 journalists are calling on the international community to pull out all the stops to secure their release. Silence is no longer an option:

Eritrean asylum seeker Abdoela Berhan, 35, has been jailed for six months after punching 20-year-old British woman Cleo Lake unconscious when she rejected his advances during a night out in Bournemouth in December 2024. CCTV footage shows Berhan approaching Cleo and her friends outside a nightclub. After she told him to leave and pushed him away when he entered her personal space, he punched her in the face and knocked her unconscious. He fled, leaving her bleeding in the street with a broken nose. Berhan, who was staying at the taxpayer-funded Britannia asylum hotel, claimed he acted in self-defense, but the judge rejected his account, saying Cleo was "entitled to reject" his advances. District Judge Orla Austin imposed the maximum six-month sentence available for the assault, describing it as an "exceptional case" involving serious violence against a young woman who had simply rejected his advances. Berhan had also recently been convicted of assaulting a Subway worker and criminal damage. Asked whether he would be deported after serving his sentence, the Home Office said: "Where a foreign national poses a threat to the UK, we will always seek to deport them."