[Video] Interview with Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh on migration issue

Eritrea’s Foreign Minister: Europe Has Encouraged Our Youth to Migrate

By AskNews

“Why Europe and Italy are so surprised and talk about the problem of migration, when it was the West to invite the Eritreans to leave their country, attracting them with opportunities to study and work? If Europe will stop to automatically recognize political asylum to Eritreans, Eritreans will stop leaving ” said Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed, interviewed by askanews on the sidelines at the Festival of the Eritrean community in Italy. In 2015 there were about 47,000 Eritreans who have sought asylum in Europe, but the minister has cast doubt on the reliability of these numbers, claiming that when some European countries have adopted a policy of automatically recognizing political asylum only to the Eritreans, also “the Ethiopians, Somalis, Sudanese and even Yemenis has began saying they are Eritreans and the numbers have increased.”

“The Eritreans have started to cross the border when they were told that they would have education, a job, they would have a lot of money and that they would live a very decent life. Some European countries have told them that Europe is a paradise. at the same time – he claimed the minister – Ethiopia has started to say that they could easily send them to the United States and Europe and have set up camps in Tigray (northern region of Ethiopia, on the border with Eritrea, ed) . And they started to leave. In Sudan, however, there were already “fields.

According to the minister the networks of traffickers operating in Ethiopia and Sudan. Pressed on the likely involvement of the Eritrean nationals, he recalled that President Isaias Afewerki has sent “a letter to ask the UN to investigate the smuggling of migrants and they have not responded.” At the recent meeting in New York with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon this “year he was told that there might be the possibility of sending a delegation from the UN Drug and Crime to discuss it, but they should create a committee to investigate this issue. “

“And it is ‘false’ that” the Eritreans are fleeing from persecution, “argued the minister, because” they were invited by the West to leave the country. It ‘been done deliberately, as a political strategy “, according to Minister , linked to the conflict fought with Ethiopia in 1998-2000 and never actually concluded, because Ethiopia did not implement the agreement (Algiers, editor’s note) and started to call for regime change. And to accelerate this change of regime have created a brain drain, the financing. At the same time, Europe has decided to give political asylum to Eritreans. They wanted to create the perception that the Eritreans were being persecuted by the government and have branded Eritrea as North Korea African. They insulted Eritrea “.

Last June, the UN investigation commission accused the Asmara government of crimes against humanity. A report dismissed as politically motivated by the Eritrean authorities. And spread “in conjunction” with the military attack moved from Ethiopia on the border. “How is it that these two events were simultaneous?”, Said the minister to askanews.

In fact, the United Nations set as the main reason for the migration of Eritreans the indefinite national service, although the law fix its duration to 18 months. But for the minister “the issue of the 18 months of national service is not an issue in itself, because Ethiopia still occupies our territories, when the border was already demarcated in a final and binding agreement. Ethiopia is not respecting the agreement and the guarantors and witnesses of the Algiers agreement are US, UN, EU, AU and Algeria, and no one to date has done because pressure Ethiopia to withdraw from our territories. they talk about it, but do not press. L ‘ Eritrea has to protect herself and the young people must participate. Why ask us 18 months of the lever when our territory is occupied? “

“If they make pressure on Ethiopia because it respects the Algiers Agreement, we are ready to restore the 18-month military service,” he added. Meanwhile, to stem the flight of its young people, the government is taking action to create jobs and raise salaries of the persons providing the national service, totally inadequate compared to the cost of living. After three months of military training in which they are obliged the 18 month, those who do not follow a military career are used in schools, in public administration, in agriculture, in the construction industry and in others for the country’s development. “We are equating the salary of people who provide national service with that of civil servants. For graduates is 3,000 nafka ($ 200) as the first pay and then increases. Now the government is finalizing other levels of remuneration.”

In view of the scarce resources of the country, one of the poorest in the world, the minister was keen to point out how his government “will not abandon anyone on the street, offering everyone a job” even to those who do not continue their studies after graduation, thanks to “centers for vocational training”. “The number of Eritrean migrants is decreasing because they are having jobs and higher salaries and are awarded in the field in which they are formed. All the young people will work,” he promised, but it is undeniable that if it were “rehabilitated the industrial sector, as we said to Germany, it would solve the problem of employment. “

Software Translation from Italian

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