Dejen Ande Hishel was an elite Eritrean fighter pilot. He trained in Russia and flew twin-engine MiG-29 Soviet jets during Eritrea’s war with Ethiopia in the late 1990s.

But in 1999, Eritrean authorities arrested him, for reasons that remain unclear. He was never formally charged with a crime or faced trial, but nonetheless he spent 15 years in a maximum-security prison before escaping in 2014.

Today Dejen lives in Sweden and is speaking out on behalf of others imprisoned in Eritrea, many of whom have been held incommunicado, without a trial or hearing, for more than a decade.

“I feel a sense of responsibility to speak not only for myself, but for all of those left in prison,” Dejen told VOA, speaking in Tigrigna.

End of war

The timing of Dejen’s call is no coincidence. Eritrea and Ethiopia recently negotiated an end to their 20-year border conflict, which the Eritrean government has said necessitated tight restrictions on its citizens, including indefinite, compulsory military service and limitations on movement, both within and outside the country.

As dynamics in the region change, activists are hoping the government will loosen those restrictions or free prisoners.

In July, Radio France International reported that Eritrean authorities released 35 Christians who belong to denominations not recognized by the state. The 35 had been arrested for illegally practicing their faith.

Berhane Asmelash, an advocate for Eritreans facing religious persecution, told RFI that the releases had already been planned and weren’t prompted by Eritrea and Ethiopia’s new peace deal. 

The government has yet to acknowledge the reported releases. VOA reached out for comment from Yemane Gebremeskel, Eritrea’s minister of information, but did not hear back.

When a reporter with The Economist met Yemane recently in Asmara, the capital, he said people should give the government time to institute domestic changes.

‘I see myself as if I am still in prison’

Although he’s no longer detained, Dejen said his freedom has not been complete because so many remain in prison, including high-ranking officers.

Semhar Habtezion’s father, Brigadier General Habtezion Hadgu, founded the Eritrean Air Force, Semhar told VOA. He was incarcerated in 2003.

“He had direct altercations with the president,” Semhar said. Those disagreements concerned how the air force was managed and why colleagues like Dejen had been imprisoned.

“He had the fancy of owning and running his own farm in the countryside where he was born,” Semhar said, and would have been content to simply step away from the air force.

But Habtezion never got that chance. He has been held incommunicado for 15 years, and his family’s attempts to even learn about his health have gone nowhere.

The fate of compatriots like Habtezion occupies Dejen’s mind.

“Even when I speak to you from outside the country, I see myself as if I am still in prison, because all of my colleagues are still there,” Dejen said. That’s led to a sense of responsibility, he added, to speak for himself along with those still imprisoned.

Conditions in prison were harsh and remain difficult to articulate, Dejen said. The food was unpleasant and, at times, inedible. Inmates often were moved between facilities, and some prisons are better than others.

For Dejen, the overall experience was dire.

“There are times where you might die due to hunger or sickness. There are times when they won’t allow access to medical care,” he said.

Law and order

But Dejen doesn’t want to focus on the past. He’s more interested in what happens next.

“It doesn’t matter to us if we were arrested or not,” he said. “What concerns us is the status of where the country is at the moment.”

Many advocacy groups, along with the United Nations, have documented widespread human rights concerns in Eritrea. Government officials have dismissed those reports as biased and politically motivated, but stories like Dejen’s suggest the judicial system needs sweeping reform.

In its latest country report, Human Rights Watch concluded that Eritreans face arbitrary arrest and indefinite imprisonment.

In a statement released in June by the U.N., the special rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea said arbitrary arrest and incommunicado detention have continued to persist.

What Dejen most hopes to see is due process.

“Whether we solve it through the rule of law or peace, we need to sit down and discuss. If that is the discussion, I would go back to my country tonight. I would stand trial and even go back to jail if there is law and order,” Dejen said.

Although he has been away for many years, Dejen feels a yearning to return to Eritrea.

“I do wish to go back, and, yes, I have a plan for sure,” Dejen said. “I can learn, work and grow here [in Sweden], but I won’t find full satisfaction without going back home and serving my country.”
…

your ad here

A mobile blood-testing lab. Hand-washing stations on street corners. Motorcycle taxi drivers forbidden from sharing spare helmets. If Ebola is coming, the city of Goma in eastern Congo wants to be ready.

An outbreak suspected of killing 43 people is spreading across the lush farmlands of eastern Congo, where ethnic and military conflicts threaten to hobble containment efforts.

Goma, a lakeside city of 1 million people near the Rwandan border, is more than 350 kilometers (220 miles) south from the epicenter of the outbreak in the town of Mangina in North Kivu province, and no cases have been confirmed there.

But the virus has already spread to neighboring Ituri province, and the number of infected is rising daily. Residents in the busy trading hub are taking no chances.

“It’s not only me who fears the appearance of Ebola. The whole community here is scared,” said shopkeeper Dany Mupenda. “To protect ourselves we stick to the rules of hygiene to avoid being one of the victims of this epidemic.”

UNICEF has set up hand-washing stations around the city. Health workers check residents’ temperatures in public places and at the entrance to the city. The hospital has set up a mobile lab to test suspected cases.

900 lives

It is the kind of preparation that has become routine in Congo, which has experienced 10 Ebola outbreaks since the virus was discovered on the Ebola River in 1976. In all, it has killed 900 people.

Ebola causes diarrhea, vomiting and hemorrhagic fever and can be spread through bodily fluids. An epidemic between 2013 and 2016 killed more than 11,300 people in West Africa.

Congo, a vast, forested country, has become a staging ground for new treatments, including the first use of vaccines that helped contain an outbreak that was declared over in July, just days before the latest flare-up was discovered.

Goma residents know that medical breakthroughs mean little if simple measures are not taken on the ground. After basketball games, teams have been told not to shake hands, said Fiston Kasongo, a young basketball player. “What scares me is the speed with which Ebola spreads and the consequences that follow,” he said.

Patrons of Goma’s popular motorcycle taxis have to risk speeding helmetless across town.

“We are told that it can spread through the sweat of heat, and as our helmets are not worn by one customer only, they allowed customers to ride with no helmet to prevent the spread,” said a taxi driver named Wemba.
…

your ad here

Medical staff are fleeing hospitals in Cameroon’s troubled English-speaking regions after attacks this month left several nurses dead and many others wounded. Medics say they are stuck between a military that accuses them of aiding armed separatists and rebel fighters who say hospitals betray them to the army. 

Elvis Ndansi, of the Cameroon trade union of nurses, says the killings and abuse provoked outrage in the medical corps.   

“The military comes, chase them out of the hospital, brutalize them, beat them. As medical personnel, we all stand to condemn these acts and say they are very wrong. Medical personnel are supposed to be protected in times of war. They are there to take care of all casualties, be they from the military, be they from the Ambazonians or secessionists. Their role is to save lives,” Ndansi said.

Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai of the English-speaking southwest region denies the military is responsible for the attacks, saying the separatists seeking an English-speaking state in Cameroon are the ones to blame. He says he has instructed the military to protect hospitals from armed gangs. 

Despite the danger of traveling in the region, hundreds of medics showed up Wednesday for a funeral to honor Nancy Azah and her husband Njong Padisco. The couple, both nurses, were shot dead last week, reportedly by Cameroonian troops.

Nurse Arrey Rose says the association of nurses called on the medical community to show solidarity by attending the funeral service.

“We have mobilized to let the world know that doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians and pharmacists are tortured and killed just for saving lives,” Rose said. “God spared mine when I was pulled out of hospital and beaten just because I was accused of hiding terrorists. Many are dead, many are wounded.”

The violence has led patients and medical staff to desert hospitals in both the northwest and southwest.

Eighteen-year-old Mundi Ernestine says that when she took her younger brother to Bamenda regional hospital, there was no one to treat him.

“God has been sustaining him,” Ernestine said. “We were not attended to in the hospital for a week because the staff was absent. We had to carry him on our back through the bush to Bamenda, which is a bit calm. He is recovering, but my fear is that many are dying in the bushes just because there is no nurse to help.”

The Cameroon Medical Council says, due to the ongoing conflict, the exact number of medical staff who have fled the two volatile regions is unknown. 

Governor Bilai is calling on them to return. He says all political leaders and civil society groups should educate runaway staff to go back to their work, especially now that the military is protecting medical facilities.

More than 300 civilians and security forces have been killed in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions since 2016, when separatists launched their drive for an independent state they call Ambazonia.

The United Nations says at least 200,000 people have been internally displaced in the conflict and tens of thousands have fled to neighboring Nigeria. 
…

your ad here

A pop singer and prominent critic of Uganda’s government was due to face a military court Thursday for his alleged role in clashes in which the longtime president’s motorcade was attacked by people throwing stones.

Lawmaker Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, whose stage name is Bobi Wine, will be tried under military law because he allegedly possessed a gun when he was arrested in the northwestern town of Arua earlier this week, a government official told lawmakers Wednesday.

Ssentamu’s wife insisted he doesn’t know how to handle a weapon, and rights activists demanded his release.

Three other lawmakers arrested alongside Ssentamu were charged with treason in a magistrates’ court on Thursday. It was not immediately clear what charges Ssentamu might face.

The lawmaker has not been seen or heard from since his arrest, and many were worried about his safety after Uganda’s deputy prime minister told lawmakers he had been hospitalized in custody, without giving details. 

Ssentamu and other politicians, including President Yoweri Museveni, were in Arua on Monday campaigning in a by-election to choose a lawmaker.

Ssentamu’s driver was shot dead in the clashes there. The lawmaker later posted a picture of the dead man on Twitter, saying he had been killed by the police “thinking they’ve shot at me.”

A group of lawmakers authorized by the parliament speaker to travel to the northern town of Gulu, where Ssentamu was believed to be detained, told reporters Thursday that they had been denied access to their colleague.

Kizza Besigye, a four-time presidential challenger who has been detained many times, told reporters Thursday that Ssentamu’s case highlighted what he called “the hopelessness” of parliament before a military regime.

Museveni’s statement

Museveni said in a statement Wednesday that Ssentamu and others would be “punished according to the law.”

Ssentamu, who is his 30s and was elected to parliament last year, has emerged as a powerful voice with his calls for young people to “stand up” and take over this East African country from what he calls the current government’s failed leadership.

In hotly contested by-elections this year he has backed candidates who emerged victorious, signaling his rise in ranks of the political opposition. Many followers urge him to run in the next presidential election in 2021.

The by-election in Arua was being held because the area’s member of parliament, a member of the ruling party, was shot dead near the capital, Kampala, in June.

Growing concern

Museveni, a key U.S. security ally, took power by force in 1986 and has since been elected five times. The last vote in 2016 was marred by allegations of fraud.

Although Museveni has campaigned on his record of establishing peace and stability, some worry that those gains are being eroded the longer he stays in power. Museveni, who is 73, is now able to seek re-election in 2021 because parliament passed legislation last year removing a clause in the constitution that had prevented anyone over 75 from holding the presidency.

Uganda has not witnessed a peaceful transfer of power since independence from Britain in 1962.
…

your ad here