On 18 September the US Department of Treasury announced the lifting of sanctions that had been imposed on Eritrea for five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least two reasons have been given for this by different government departments: the Department of State claimed that President Trump had chosen not to renew the Biden-era sanctions in order \u2018to advance US regional interests\u2019. When viewed in the context of the ongoing US-Israel war with Iran, this may sound reasonable. With continued blockages to the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea on which Eritrea sits has become a key oil shipping route \u2013 another that is looking increasingly vulnerable in light of Houthi fighter advances around the Bab el-Mandeb<\/a> strait in Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other reasoning is more questionable. The sanctions were announced against the backdrop of a two-year conflict in the Tigray region of Eritrea\u2019s neighbour Ethiopia, during which Eritrean forces and others have since been encontrado<\/a> to have perpetrated violations and abuses amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity \u2018on a staggering scale\u2019.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The Biden administration imposed the sanctions under a presidential declaration of a \u2018national emergency\u2019, and they had been renewed every year since, including under President Trump in 2025. This year however, the US Treasury claims that the emergency has \u2018expired\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spoiler alert: it hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Tigray war was ostensibly brought to a close with the signature<\/a> of an African Union-mediated peace accord between the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan leaders in November 2022, Eritrean soldiers have occupied parts of the region ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under particular pressure is the Irob District, which the Eritrean government insists was assigned to it at the end of its border war with Ethiopia by the Treaty of Algiers of 2000. Members of the predominantly Catholic Irob community from which the district takes its name report ongoing human rights violations, including looting, enforced disappearances, and being forced to choose between compulsory assimilation and forced relocation by troops who have imposed the Eritrean language and identification cards on them, conscripted individuals, and targeted Catholic priests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In October 2025 the Ethiopian government sent a letter<\/a> to UN Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres accusing Eritrea of colluding with a faction of the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF) to fund, mobilise and direct anti-government militia in the Amhara region, which borders Tigray, and claiming that the Eritrean government and the TPLF were \u2018actively preparing to wage war against Ethiopia\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it is also evident that hostilities between the two countries are being stoked even further by provocative regular statements from Ethiopian officials about their country\u2019s vital need for Red Sea access, including the prime minister\u2019s description of Ethiopia\u2019s loss of the port of Assab to Eritrea as an \u2018historical mistake\u2019, and his assertion<\/a> in September 2025 that it was only \u2018a matter of time\u2019 before Ethiopia regained control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tensions have been escalating in the region all year. On 29 January 2026 fighting broke out<\/a> between Ethiopian government forces and TPLF fighters in Mai Degusha, Tselemti District, sparking several days of clashes in which at least one Tigrayan fighter was killed in drone strikes<\/a> for which a Tigrayan official alleged the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) was responsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 1 August violence erupted<\/a> in Shererina, near the border with Sudan, with both the TPLF and the Ethiopian government blaming each other for the clashes. Hundreds of Ethiopians reportedly crossed into Sudan to escape heavy gunfire, artillery and drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If such developments were not enough to give the US Treasury pause in declaring that the emergency in Tigray had \u2018expired\u2019, events that have transpired since have exposed just how inaccurate such an assessment was.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n On 20 September \u2013 two days after the US lifted its sanctions \u2013 the TPLF and six other insurgent groups announced<\/a> the formation of the Ethiopian Peoples\u2019 Forces Alliance for Survival, with the stated objective of overthrowing the government of Abiy Ahmed. Within days Tigrayan forces had taken control<\/a> of federally administered airports in the region, and launched offensives in the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unsurprisingly, Eritrea appears to have entered the conflict swiftly, albeit this time allegedly on the side of the TPLF, having recently severed diplomatic relations<\/a> with Ethiopia. In early October residents reported to the BBC<\/a> that Eritrean troops had crossed into the country, with Ethiopia\u2019s foreign minister accusing<\/a> Eritrea of an \u2018all-out invasion\u2019 and a \u2018blatant act of aggression that engages Ethiopia\u2019s inherent right to self-defence\u2019 in a letter to the UN Security Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eritrea\u2019s Minister of Information subsequently rejected the claims in a post on X<\/a>; however, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLD), an independent conflict-monitoring organisation, has documented<\/a> the presence of Eritrean troops in the region, including of Eritrean soldiers withdrawing across the border following advances by Ethiopian forces and their allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is also important to remember that the sanctions were imposed on the Eritrean regime in response to its conduct in Tigray for which it is yet to be held accountable, and which mirror several human rights violations it has been committing within its own borders since de facto independence in 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year marked a decade since a UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) \u2018found reasonable grounds to believe<\/a>\u2019 that the Eritrean government had committed crimes against humanity in a \u2018widespread and systematic manner\u2019 since 1991. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Among the crimes the COI identified were enslavement, enforced disappearance, torture, rape, murder, and both ethnic and religious persecution, deemed to have been committed largely but not exclusively within the context of Eritrea\u2019s military service regime, into which tens of thousands of Eritreans have been forcibly and indefinitely conscripted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There have been no meaningful improvements in the situation of human rights since the COI published its findings, just as there has been no meaningful change in the plight of all but four religious groups whose practices have been effectively outlawed since 2002, nor any consistent or significant reduction in the number of prisoners of conscience who remain arbitrarily detained in woefully inadequate conditions across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, the Eritrean government has absolutely no interest in change. It managed to serve consecutive three-year terms on the UN Human Rights Council from 2019 to 2024 \u2013 securing re-election halfway through the war in Tigray without showing the slightest improvement in its domestic human rights record; it is one of the only countries to have never accepted a visit by a UN independent human rights expert, and it has made no effort to meet any of the five benchmarks for progress established<\/a> by the UN Special Rapporteur on the country in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet the US government has decided that now is an appropriate time to lift sanctions. Signs of an impending rapprochement were already there in May 2025 when, following a 2024 letter from the Eritrean president congratulating him on his electoral victory, President Trump claimed<\/a> that the US valued \u2018the contributions the Government of the State of Eritrea can make to regional security.\u2019 Then, in a subsequent letter to Afewerki dated 30 July 2025, Trump stated<\/a> he would be \u2018reversing the negative, harmful damage of the Biden Administration around the globe\u2019 and reaffirmed his desire for re-engagement.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Subsequent developments confirmed that President Trump is set on undoing the work of his predecessor above all else \u2013 but at what cost?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sanctions are complex; in some instances they impact already suffering populations more adversely than their intended targets in governments and militaries. In the case of Eritrea, they specifically targeted the armed forces, the ruling party, and state officials.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n
An occupation that never ended<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
An emergency expired?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
A regime that doesn\u2019t change<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n