This statement was delivered by Human Rights Watch at the 62nd regular session of the UN Human Rights Council during an enhanced interactive dialogue on the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Eritrea held on June 15, 2026.
We thank the Special Rapporteur for his latest report.
As highlighted in the report, Eritrea’s policy of indefinite national service continues to trap generations of citizens in abusive conditions amounting to forced labor, while the government continues to punish draft evaders and their families.
The government has dismantled independent media and unlawfully detained perceived critics, religious leaders, and journalists, often incommunicado, without due process, some for years even decades, with many facing torture and other degrading treatment.
While there have been a few recent releases, the UN estimates that over 10,000 people remain arbitrarily detained. As highlighted by the SR, severe restrictions on civic space extend beyond Eritrea’s borders through severe transnational repression.
While these factors, that have driven hundreds of thousands into exile, continue, the report of the Special Rapporteur shows that asylum space and protection for Eritreans in neighboring countries has shrunk dramatically.
Abuses by the Eritrean forces in Ethiopia’s Tigray region have continued with impunity.
The government has systematically ignored recommendations by international and regional rights mechanisms to address these concerns, including the Special Rapporteur, and refused to engage or to take measures to improve the dire human rights situation.
In this context, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur remains a lifeline – ensuring a much needed sustained spotlight on grave ongoing abuses amid severe repression, and documentation that may give some hope to victims and their families, and support future accountability efforts.
We urge members of this Council to support its full renewal, and to request further guidance from the special rapporteur on measures to advance accountability for past and ongoing grave abuses in Eritrea.
Thank you.
