The Chronicle of Higher Education
Tuesday, August 21, 2001
By HENK ROSSOUW
Eritrean authorities arrested and detained about 2,000
students at the University of Asmara this month, one of whom died last Tuesday,
according to Agence France-Presse.
The university and the government say they have no knowledge
of where or how many students are being detained, or the circumstances behind
the death of the student. But sources within the university say that Yirga
Yosef died of heat stroke after three days' detention at a camp in Wia with
inadequate food or shelter from the desert sun.
According to a small group of detainees released last
Tuesday, the University of Asmara students were arrested August 10 for refusing
to enlist in Eritrea's summer work camp until the government frees Semere
Kesete, president of their student union. The students were rounded up outside
the Supreme Court, where they were waiting for Mr. Kesete to receive his
hearing, and inside their dormitories. They were detained at a stadium, then
herded onto buses bound for the desert.
Mr. Kesete was detained in July for publicly criticizing,
during a convocation ceremony, government abuse of the university's independence,
the lack of adequate facilities for higher education, and the compulsory summer
work camp. A spokesman for the Eritrean government said that the university
students were arrested as a reminder that they were legally obliged to enlist
in the summer work camp.
If Yirga Yosef died while under government detention, then
"It's out of the university's hands," said Wezenet Jewodros, the director
of student academic affairs at the university.
On Saturday, 250 parents of the students who are detained at
Wia, 18 miles from the port city of Massawa, waited outside the gates of the
University of Asmara hoping for news of their release. Two journalists
reporting on the parents' demands were arrested, and police officers dispersed
the crowd.