ASC Researcher on WBAI Radio: Eritreans in Mexico
Dan Connell, a visiting researcher with the Pardee School of Global Studies-affiliated African Studies Center, said that the Eritrean refugee crisis is reverberating even as far as the Americas.
Connell made the argument in a Sept. 7 broadcast of América Otherwise, a program on WBAI Radio New York City. Connell’s interview starts at the 20 minute mark.
You can listen to the entire interview here.
Connell’s research was also published in the Summer 2015 edition of the Middle East Report, a publication of the Middle East Research and Information Project, on the same topic. His article is entitled “Eritrean Refugee’s Trek Through the Americas.”
From the text of the article:
Over the past year, I have interviewed hundreds of refugees in camps and communities in North America, Europe, Israel and Africa to ask why they left. Most cite indefinite national service, but many also mention intolerable abuse, humiliation and punishment for things like raising a question about their status, suspicions they planned to leave or abetted someone else’s flight, or just praying while in the service. Such offenses, real or imagined, are almost never prosecuted at a military hearing; the accused simply vanishes into one of Eritrea’s many secret prisons to languish for years with no one tracking them and no hope of release but by escape.
You can read the entire article here.
In addition to his work with the African Studies Center, Connell is a founder of the organization Grassroots International, a group which works to ensure the right to land, water and food around the world through strategic grantmaking and advocacy.