News Alert!

Further exposing the severity of the Eritrean government’s crisis, informed sources in Ethiopia and Eritrea; have confirmed that the Voice of Americas stringer from Asmara Mr. Aklilu Solomon has managed to safely escape to Ethiopia. This news comes with the background that recently the Eritrean government has arrested most of its own journalists to further discourage the flight of government journalists to neighboring countries as well as to Europe. It is obvious that the measure has not stamped out the determined effort by Eritrean journalists to flee from the grip of the authoritarian regime.

For the record it should be noted that Mr. Solomon was arrested on July 2003 for reporting on the Voice of America that Eritreans were grief stricken when the government started officially informing families about the martyrs of the Ethio-Eritrea border war. The government media was disseminating a different version of the people’s reaction stating that the parents and family members welcomed the news with cheers and jubilation. Mr. Solomon was arrested incommunicado in a shipping container for 18 months at the infamous Adi Abeto prison. Upon his release he was further confined to a house arrest with no rights to telephone or any sort of communication with outside world or inside Eritrea until the day he escaped to Ethiopia.