Eritrea persecuted relatives of military draft dodgers – HRW

Eritrea has punished the family members of thousands of alleged draft evaders during a conscription drive intended to bolster its military campaign in neighbouring Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

Women as old as 71 were arbitrarily detained and expelled from their homes as the authorities sought to locate their missing relatives, the United States-based rights group said in a report.

Information minister Yemane Gebremeskel did not respond to a request for comment about the report.

The HRW report, based on interviews with more than a dozen people who had fled the country and relatives of people caught up in the conscription drive, provides a glimpse into how the secretive country powered its military campaign in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

It said security forces went door to door to identify draft dodgers and detained people who could not account for missing family members.

“Everyone has always lived with the dreadful feeling of the risk of being conscripted, but this is at a whole different level,” one resident of the capital, Asmara, told Human Rights Watch.