Russia’s Pivoting To The Horn Of Africa Via Eritrea & The UAE

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Eritrea’s Foreign Minister Osman Saleh, August 31, 2018, Sochi, Russia

 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lauded his country’s relationship with Eritrea and informed the world about Moscow’s plans to build a logistics center there.

He was speaking alongside his Eritrean counterpart at a press conference in Sochi after their bilateral meeting, which he also noted included discussions about building regional transport corridors, pipelines, and opening up a Russian language department in one of Asmara’s universities. Lavrov also said that the UNSC sanctions against Eritrea that were imposed in 2009 after reports that the country was aiding Somalia’s Al-Shaabab should be lifted, and he praised Eritrea for all that it’s done in the name of regional peace over the past few months in view of its rapidly moving rapprochement with Ethiopia that completely transformed the geopolitical situation in the Horn of Africa.

European Union continuing to fund African nations that are fuelling migrant crisis

Brussels likely to give £150m grant to Eritrea, despite large numbers of its people joining exodus to Europe

Brussels is continuing to give large-scale aid grants to African nations with repressive governments, despite evidence that their woeful human rights records are fuelling Europe’s migrant crisis.

The Telegraph has learned that Brussels may give nearly £150m in aid funding to Eritrea, a country dubbed “The African North Korea” because of its practice of conscripting menfolk into near-indefinite military service.

In 2014, some one in five of all migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean in people-smuggling boats were Eritreans, according to the figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.