Eritrea has avoided international attention in recent years in ways that may have protected the Red Sea country's rulers from proper scrutiny but benefit no one else. Even those who recall that the continent's youngest state gained its unlikely independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a bloody thirty-year struggle may be shocked to hear that the optimistic nationalism of the 1990s has been dissolved under President Isaias Afewerki into a despairing void, causing thousands of Eritreans to flee the country that they fought so hard to establish.

Eritrea's extensive detention and torture of its citizens and its policy of prolonged military conscription are creating a human rights crisis and prompting increasing numbers of Eritreans to flee the country.

Egypt should immediately halt deportations of Eritrean asylum seekers to their home country, where they face detention and the risk of torture, Human Rights Watch said today.

Egypt should under no circumstances deport Eritrean asylum seekers now in detention without first allowing the UN refugee agency access to assess their refugee claims.

Since June 2007, Egyptian border guards have killed at least 32 African migrants trying to cross into Israel, and Israel has forcibly returned at least 139 border crossers to Egypt.

Thank you Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, for providing Human Rights Watch this opportunity to voice our concerns about the dire, and deteriorating, human rights and humanitarian situation in the Horn of Africa, and particularly in regard to Somalia and the Somali region of Ethiopia.

Ethiopian, Somali and insurgent forces are all responsible for rampant violations of the laws of war in Mogadishu, causing massive suffering for the civilian population, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch urged the UN Security Council during its current deliberations on Somalia to include a strong civilian protection mandate in any peacekeeping mission.

The Ethiopian military has forcibly displaced thousands of civilians in the country’s eastern Somali region in recent weeks while escalating its campaign against a separatist insurgency movement, Human Rights Watch said today. Both the government and rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) must protect civilians and ensure their access to humanitarian relief.