Will the UN Security Council save Eritrea today?

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Eritreans are today seated on the edge as they await to know the fate of their country as the UN Security Council will today vote to lift arms embargo and all travel bans, asset freezes and targeted sanctions on Eritrea.

According to the Diplomats at the United Nations, they expect the Security Council to vote unanimously to lift the sanctions against Eritrea that were imposed nine years ago.

 

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The council slapped sanctions on Eritrea in 2009 for its alleged support of Al-Shabaab insurgents in Somalia, a claim Asmara has long denied.

The draft resolution acknowledges that UN monitors have “not found conclusive evidence that Eritrea supports Al-Shabaab” and declares that the sanctions and arms embargo will end on the day of the adoption of the measure.

The decision to vote to lift the sanctions on the country comes after Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a peace deal in July that ended two decades of hostility and led to friendlier relations with Djibouti, shoring up prospects for stability in the Horn of Africa.

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A draft resolution proposed by the UK recognises that UN monitors have failed to substantiate the allegations.

It also calls on Eritrea and Djibouti to continue efforts to settle a 2008 border dispute and asks Asmara to release information concerning Djiboutian soldiers missing in clashes a decade ago.

Adoption of the resolution would immediately lift the arms embargo, targeted asset freeze and travel ban imposed on the country. Eritrea sits on a strategic point on the Red Sea that connects Europe, Africa and the East but its economy has been badly affected by years of sanctions.

The Eritrean government now says that it wants compensation for the punitive measures which it calls unjustified and politically motivated.

 

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However, critics say that Eritrea has not being intentional in addressing human rights abuses from within and, in particular, the indefinite national service conscription that has led to tens of thousands of young Eritreans fleeing the country towards Europe.

Ethiopia’s ambassador to the UN, Taye Atske Selassie, said the end of sanctions would “definitely open up a lot of possibilities for Eritrea,” drawing foreign investors and bringing Asmara back into the international fold.

Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, and war broke out later that decade over a border dispute. A 2002 UN-backed boundary demarcation was meant to settle the dispute for good, but Ethiopia refused to abide by it.

 

What do you think the UN Security Council will vote in favour if Eritrea?

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