Eritrean oppositions laud EU’s sanctions against Eritrea
By Simegnish Yekoye
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Eritrean Opposition parties in Ethiopia have said that the European Union’s (EU) decision to impose sanctions against the Eritrean government in line with the United Nations Security Council Resolution goes one step towards saving Eritrea.
Early this week the EU adopted a decision that allows imposition of restrictive measures against Eritrea consisting of an arms embargo as well as travel restrictions.
The restriction also includes freezing of assets against persons and entities designated by the UN sanctions committee as having acted in violation of the arms embargo, providing support from Eritrea to armed opposition groups which aim to destabilize the region and obstructing implementation of the concerning border dispute between Djibouti and Eritrea.
“We always had doubts on the implementations of decisions by the UN. But EU took the first step and we hope all countries will follow,” said Kornelius Osman Aggar, Leader of Eritrea opposition coalition residing in Addis Ababa.
Months before, the United Nations imposed restriction against Eritrea that include freezing bank accounts of Eritrea, imposing travel bans on government official and an arms embargo.
“[The] Eritrean government has never given up to any warnings or impositions. But we are now starting to see the effects of those sanctions as President Esayas isn’t able to collect money from Eritrean Diasporas and his troops are under huge difficulty,” Kornelius said.
Because now the president himself is telling the people that Diasporas are sending money, Kornelius stated proved that the sanctions are affecting the government.
According to a statement by EU, the sanction also considers Eritreans obstructing implementation of the UN concerning the border dispute between Djibouti and Eritrea, harboring, financing, facilitating, supporting, organizing, training or inciting individuals or groups to perpetrate acts of violence or terrorist acts against other states or their citizens in the region and obstructing the investigations or work of the monitoring group pursuant to UN’s concerning the situation in Somalia.