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After a 30-year war with Ethiopia, in 1991 the people of Eritrea had finally won their freedom and voted overwhelmingly to become an independent nation. Having fought long and hard for autonomy, many Eritreans looked forward to self-rule and democracy.

Sadly, the prosperous future imagined by the Eritrean people never arrived - slowly stolen, piece by piece, by Isaias Afwerki, the country’s first and only president.

Former guerrilla leader Isaias was careful to consolidate his power in increments - saying that it takes time to build a democracy, so the people gave him time. In 1998, a war broke out with Ethiopia over disputed territory, ending in stalemate in 2000, with Ethiopia refusing to withdraw its troops and demarcate the border. The end of the conflict encouraged Eritreans to openly call for the democratic reforms which had been ‘put on hold’ by Isaias’s regime. However, President Isaias chose to double down on authoritarianism - moving in 2001 to permanently silence opposition, effectively establishing a dictatorship.

Silencing the critics, Isaias established his dictatorship.

Having already murderously crushed student protests in April, on September 18th, 2001, under the cover of the global furore surrounding the 9/11 attacks, Isaias shut down the free press and imprisoned those within the country calling most loudly for democracy: a group of ten journalists and eleven politicians, including Seyoum Tsehaye, the renowned photographer and documentary-maker who this organisation is named after.

The imprisonment of the twenty-one - without trial, without charge, without contact with their loved ones, held indefinitely and, in some cases, bound with manacles 24 hours a day - is emblematic of the modus operandi of Isaias’s regime and its utter contempt for the Eritrean people.

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Since 2001, the government has used the spectre of war with Ethiopia to justify every kind of repression against its people, making normal life near impossible and dragging the country into the mud.

The country’s one university has been shut down. There are no elections. The parliament has not been convened since 2002. There are no democratic institutions. There is no independent judiciary.

The 2016 UN inquiry into human rights in Eritrea estimated that up to 400,000 people have been enslaved by Isaias’s government - with the system of indefinite military service forced on every able citizen recognised as modern-day slavery.

Anyone that expresses the slightest dissent can expect the same fate as Seyoum and the twenty one: indefinite imprisonment in the country’s network of secret prisons. 10,000 prisoners are held in facilities as rudimentary as shipping containers, filthy and overcrowded - where they are prey to the baking desert heat, torture and sexual abuse. Suicide and preventable deaths are widespread.

Faced with such dismal prospects, many Eritreans would rather take their chances on the perilous route through Libya. And despite the fact that attempting to leave the country for those aged between 6-65 is an offence punishable by death, 5,000 a month, out of a population of less than 5 million, take their chances anyway.

At the end of 2018, the UN estimated over 500,000 people have fled Eritrea, a country of only 5 million.

Despite these blatant abuses, there is almost no international pressure on the Eritrean government - with little awareness of the dire situation. Most are not even aware that the country exists, let alone under the boot of one of the world’s most savage dictatorships.

This worldwide ignorance was evident from the bizarre recent decision to award the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize to President Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, in recognition of all parties involved in the 2018 peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia, which marked a formal end to the border war which Isaias has for so long used to justify his tyranny.

This prize was awarded in spite of the fact that the peace agreement has done absolutely nothing to change the situation in Eritrea. Hundreds of thousands remain enslaved or detained. And there has been no effort to reverse dictatorial rule.

Just like the inexplicable decision to elect Eritrea to the UN’s human rights council, the 2019 Nobel prize recognising the 2018 peace agreement serves to legitimise Isaias’s rule and distract from his regime’s crimes against humanity.

In the face of such harmful ignorance, it has fallen upon organisations like One Day Seyoum to advocate for the Eritrean people who are unable to resist within their own country.

In the words of Seyoum Tsehaye,

“if we don’t give them a voice, no one will.’’