24 June 2026
Atrocity Alert is a weekly publication by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect highlighting situations where populations are at risk of, or are enduring, mass atrocity crimes.
UN EXPERT WARNS OF ONGOING ATROCITIES IN ERITREA
On 19 June the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker, concluded that there remain “reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity continue in Eritrea.” Presenting his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), he warned that there are “no signs of meaningful improvement” in the country’s human rights situation and highlighted the government’s ongoing reliance on repression, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and indefinite national service. He further noted that grave violations persist amid widespread impunity, with no accountability for past or ongoing abuses.
The report highlights the Eritrean government’s continued use of arbitrary arrest and detention, restrictions on freedom of expression, religion and association, as well as the enduring system of indefinite national service that have shaped Eritrean society for decades. The Special Rapporteur also noted ongoing patterns of transnational repression targeting Eritrean diaspora communities abroad. Due to the grave human rights situation, thousands of Eritreans still flee the country.
The Special Rapporteur’s findings are consistent with more than a decade of UN reporting documenting widespread and systematic violations in Eritrea. Since the establishment of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate in 2012, successive reports and investigations have detailed patterns of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, restrictions on fundamental freedoms and indefinite conscription. In 2016 the UN Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea concluded that many of these abuses may constitute crimes against humanity. Ten years later, little progress has been made toward accountability.
Despite repeated recommendations from UN human rights mechanisms, Eritrean authorities have failed to implement meaningful reforms or engage constructively with independent international scrutiny. Eritrea remains among the very few states that have never received any official visit by a special procedure mandate holder and continues to deny access to independent investigators. The absence of accountability for these systematic violations sustains the risk of further atrocities.
The consequences of impunity are not confined to Eritrea’s borders. Eritrean forces played a significant role during the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where credible investigations documented widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, including extrajudicial killings, conflict-related sexual violence, attacks against civilians and ethnic cleansing. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has also found that Eritrean forces remain present in some border areas and have continued to commit “abductions, rape, property looting and arbitrary arrests.” The continued absence of accountability for abuses committed in Tigray reinforces broader patterns of impunity and increases the risk of future atrocities.
As the HRC deliberates the renewal of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate, member states should support its renewal and request that the Special Rapporteur assess and report on concrete pathways to justice, accountability and victim-centered remedies for serious violations committed in Eritrea and by Eritrean forces abroad.