The Eritrean government has seized and shut down all the country’s Catholic-run health centres in apparent retaliation for Eritrea’s bishops releasing a pastoral letter in April requesting “a national reconciliation process to guarantee social justice” for all Eritreans.
In early June, the authoritarian government, dominated by President Isaias Afewerki since 1993, ordered the 22 health centres to hand over ownership to the state. A previously unenforced 1995 law decreeing that all social institutions – including schools and clinics – be operated by the state provided the pretext for the closures. Administrators at the centres refused to comply, leading to the deployment of soldiers to enforce the ruling, with patients ordered to go home.
