UN Security Council removes Eritrea sanctions after nine years: responses

The UN Security Council voted on Wednesday 14 November to lift the 9-year-old sanctions against Eritrea following its peace deal with Ethiopia. According to Karen Pierce, UK’s ambassador to the UN, the peace played a significant role in removing sanctions. In July, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki announced that they would restore diplomatic and trade links and officially end a decades-old war.

Eritrean refugees refuse to leave boat after interception, prefer starvation over life in Libya

Having been intercepted on the Mediterranean Sea, a group of 79 Eritrean refugees has pledged not to leave the boat they boarded to reach Europe and are starving now, say refugees in two videos posted on Facebook. The group was brought back to the Libyan coast, presumably by the Libyan coast guard. A young man who says he is 16 years old stated that he had lived in Libya since 2016 and had been sold three times, that he had been punished and that his brother died during his stay. He said that he does not care if he gets killed and that the whole group have decided that they will stay on the boat until they die. “If you saw this condition, I swear to you, even for a microsecond no one can live this life in this country.”

News Highlights: UN Sanctions on Eritrea lifted, Eritreans escaped and recaptured in Libya, Valetta Migration Plan discussed in Ethiopia

In this week’s news highlights: UN Security Council sanctions on Eritrea lifted; IOM says most Horn of Africa migrants move within region; leaders of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea meet; abuses and accidents on the refugee route to Sudan; Eritrean refugees escape from Libyan detention camp and are recaptured; Netherlands cannot ban Eritrean diaspora tax outright: report; migration meeting with European and African officials in Ethiopia; Italy receives 51 refugees via resettlement; and Czech Republic another EU country that will not sign UN Migration Compact.