It is now certain that Eritrea is forcing children, under-18-year-olds, into its military and sending them to fight on the front-line in the vicious war in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, in breach of international law on the treatment of minors in military conflict.
Rodanim Yemane, a high school student, was rounded up from outside his home in Asmara on 15th December 2020, a month after his 16th birthday. He was taken to Barentu and then to Kormenae military training camp, where he was given two months training along with other conscripts. During this period, he was in contact with his family until the end of February 2021, when the family then lost contact with him and were unsure of his location. They think that he was taken to Tigray at the beginning of March 2021. The young man has said that his main mission was to capture Doctor Debresion, the President of the Tigray region.
The family realised he had definitely been sent to fight in Tigray when he was named (by his full name) on DW International Radio, and DW International online TV, on 23 March 2021, after he had been captured by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) regional forces.
Eritrea has long maintained a military conscription system of National Service through which all young persons, male and female, are forced to participate in the state’s fighting forces, with no official time limit or date for discharge. Every 17-year-old high school student is obliged to complete the last year of his/her education at the military training base in Sawa camp. Many are underage when they go to Sawa. Students conscripted into the military before they finish high-school and spend their 11th/12th grade summer receiving full military training. Those young people who try to avoid conscription are often rounded up on the streets in military “press gang” abductions, regardless of their age, and disappear without trace into military regimentation, without their parents knowing where they have gone.
Rodanim Yemanes’s abduction and forcibly sending him to the war front in Tigray is further confirmation that Eritrea is deploying minors to frontline fighting in the war in Tigray. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990), Article22, stipulates that “State Parties shall take all necessary measures to ensure that no child (defined as below the age of 18 years) shall take a direct part in hostilities and all state parties shall refrain, in particular, from recruiting any child into their armed forces.” It is clear that Eritrea is consistently ignoring this requirement of the African charter.
“Eritrea has for many years been forcing under-18-year-olds to enter its armed forces and endure military training, in contravention of international law on the treatment of children. The conscription of child soldiers by the Eritrean regime, is illegal, but not new. However, sending 16-year-olds into deadly battle is a step further in the maltreatment of children, creating a precedent which even Isaias Afewerki had not dared to initiate openly in the past. At this moment, the Eritrean regime is ferociously rounding up underage students from schools, streets and their homes across the country, in order to be despatched to Tigray as reinforcements”, says Elizabeth Chyrum, Director of Human Rights Concern -Eritrea (HRCE)
HRCE calls for the immediate withdrawal of all under 18-year-olds from the Eritrean military and the conflict in Tigray, and urgent action to prevent other child soldiers from Eritrea being deployed in battle.
HRCE calls on the African Union and UNICEF to intervene in this matter to urge Eritrea to withdraw all child soldiers from Tigray, and to cease immediately the practice of drafting under-age children into military service.
HRCE calls upon the international community and the United Nations to monitor and enforce the withdrawal of all Eritrean military forces from the Tigray province in Ethiopia.
HRCE calls upon the UN Human Rights Council to formulate Special Measures and to direct the Special Rapporteur for human rights in Eritrea to investigate the drafting of children into the military and into battle by the Eritrean government.
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE)
