Plea for reconsideration of decision to expel Eritreans

The Eritrean Human Rights Advocacy Group has highlighted the dire circumstances faced by Eritreans who have been declined refugee status when they their return to their homeland.

The US-based group appealed to the authorities in Malta to reconsider their decision to expel the Eritreans since their deportation would be the equivalent of sentencing them to harsh prison terms, with no rights of appeal, or worse.

"Eritrea is now, to all intents and purposes, a police state, run by a brutal dictatorship, which treats people who dissent from its policies as enemies of the state," the group said.

The government reserves its harshest treatment for Eritreans who have "embarrassed" it by revealing its secrets of detention and slave labour camps and underground prisons, it said.

The Eritreans currently in Malta would be treated most severely by the government on their return to Eritrea, it said.

"Based on the evidence of previous cases, it is safe to conclude that they would not be tried in a court of law. Nor would they have a court-appointed lawyer, or a right to appeal a court decision which, in 100 per cent of the cases, rules in favour of the government," the group said.

Around 47 Eritreans, families with children - a couple of whom were born in Malta - were the last batch to be rejected refugee status by the Refugee Commission last week. They are among some 208 illegal immigrants who drifted into Xlendi Bay in March, packed like sardines in a 40-foot fishing boat.

They are appealing against the decision and have sought the assistance of the Peace Lab and lawyer George Abela.

In May, the UNHCR declared the cessation of refugee status for Eritreans, who fled their country as a result of the war of independence, or the recent border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The UNHCR had said that the root causes of the Eritrean refugee problem no longer existed as fundamental and durable changes had occurred with the end of the 30-year-old war with Ethiopia in 1991 and Eritrean independence in 1993.

It said peace had returned with the signing of a ceasefire agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea in June, 2000, and the establishment of a UN-supervised security buffer zone between the two countries.