by Martino Lombezzi / Contrasto

Eritrea is a young nation which has conquered its independence in 1993 after some thirty years of war against Ethiopia. After few years of apparent prosperity and development a new war with the neighbor country spread off in 1998. Ending by an unsteady armistice in 2000, the war pulled down hopes of a rebirth of the former Italian colony, causing many civil losts and destroying the already weak economic system. Inside the country the government of president Isaias Afeworki, one of the historical leader of the Eritrean Popular Liberation Front, looks more and more similar to a dictatorship.
Today the Eritrean government is considered one of the most repressive regime of the entire African continent: the power is concentrated in the president’s hands, a selected group of soldiers and members of the only party, while new war winds blow up to the borders with Ethiopia.