8 October 2026
We are deeply shocked and outraged by reports that Yordanos Teweldemedhin, a 50-year-old Pentecostal Christian and mother of one from Keren, died in Eritrean custody on 28 September 2026. Information received from members of her family and religious-freedom advocates indicates that Yordanos had been detained for two years and ten months solely because of her Christian faith. Pentecostal Christianity is not among the four religious communities officially recognised by the Eritrean government: the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Sunni Islam, the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea.
According to these reports, security agents seized Yordanos outside her home as she returned from work. She was initially taken to Keren’s First Police Station, subsequently transferred to Hashferay prison and later imprisoned at Mai Serwa. During her detention, she was reportedly pressured to renounce her faith, but she refused. She endured prolonged suffering and is said to have developed breast cancer while imprisoned. Despite the seriousness of her condition, she was reportedly denied adequate medical treatment. Her family was eventually informed by the Halibet prison ward to collect her body.
Yordanos’s reported death is not an isolated tragedy. It forms part of a longstanding pattern of religious persecution in Eritrea. Pentecostal and Evangelical Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of other religious communities continue to languish in prisons and secret detention facilities under appalling conditions. Many have never been charged, brought before a court or allowed access to legal counsel and their families. Prisoners have reportedly endured torture, disease, inadequate food, denial of medical treatment and sustained pressure to abandon their beliefs.
No person should be abducted, imprisoned or left to die because of their faith. Freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental human right, not a privilege granted by the government. The Eritrean authorities bear responsibility for the lives and welfare of every person in their custody. Denying essential medical treatment to a seriously ill prisoner is cruel, inhuman and indefensible.
The circumstances surrounding Yordanos’s arrest, illness and death cannot be independently investigated inside Eritrea. No independent domestic human-rights organisations are permitted to operate freely, international monitors cannot inspect the country’s prisons, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea has repeatedly been denied entry. Information about deaths in custody therefore reaches the outside world primarily through relatives, survivors and advocates, often at considerable personal risk. This deliberate secrecy enables the authorities to conceal abuse, medical neglect and the fate of those held behind prison walls.
Yordanos’s death must be understood within this system of secrecy and impunity. Religious prisoners can be detained indefinitely without charge, denied contact with their families and deprived of essential medical care, while the government prevents any independent examination of their treatment. Families are left without answers, official records or meaningful legal remedies. We condemn this cruelty and call upon the international community to preserve testimony, document every reported case, protect witnesses and maintain sustained pressure for the release of all those imprisoned solely because of their religion or belief. Yordanos and the countless others suffering in Eritrea’s prisons must not be silenced, erased or forgotten.
Yordanos remained steadfast in her faith despite imprisonment, suffering and pressure to renounce what she believed. We honour her courage and extend our deepest condolences to her child, family, friends and faith community. Her name and the injustice she endured must not be forgotten.
Justice for Yordanos Teweldemedhin.
Freedom for all prisoners of conscience in Eritrea.
End religious persecution in Eritrea now!
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE)
