Liverpool protest (Photo: Right to Remain)
Last Tuesday, during Refugee Week, the annual UK-wide event which celebrates the stories and resilience of refugees, some 500 Eritreans from across the UK assembled in the dock city of Liverpool to demand justice, freedom and sanctuary. Eritreans currently make up the single largest nationality of people seeking asylum in the UK with 3,552 applications for asylum made in the twelve months up to March 2015. The applicants are individuals who have fled a country which is known among the organisers of last week’s demonstration as 'the North Korea of Africa'.
Eritrea is a country which criminalises leaving the country, enforces open-ended conscription to an army accused of crimes against humanity, and enacts brutal crackdowns on dissent.
