June is a month to the remembrance of our martyrs (20 June) as well as a month of losing everything to some of us. our home, our land, our culture, our community and our way of living as a society.
in July 2018 Eritrea and Ethiopia came to sign a peace agreement after a long no war no peace period with the proposal of new young prime minister Abiy Ahmed. it was fully accepted by both countries and people of both sides. To us Eritreans, it was the hope of change and freedom in our country. because it was an excuse for decades to the government for not implementing our constitution, not limiting the indefinite military service and other things he did to remain in his power. finally, this peace agreement was our hope to normalize our situation in our home country. but it didn't, instead, he is using it as a new opportunity to himself to extend his power.
a few days later in July, he appeared to visite Ethiopia, a couple days after the declaration of the two countries to a new era of a peace agreement. in his speech, he said, " Words cannot express the joy we are feeling now". and soon he said, " we lost nothing". it was out of respect and selfish to say. we can see he was happy and overwhelmed, but that was just expressing how he irresponsible and lack of empathy toward his country and its people's suffering.
let me tell you what we lose, in 1998 around June, the unexpected war broke out in those border villages including my own village. those villages are located in the southern Debub region of Eritrea. my village and other more 11 villages were suddenly under attack and people forcibly left their home. we left our home, our land, our elders who were unable to run from the war, our properties and cattle. we became displaced people in our country. we became landless and homeless. we became people with no rights to work, rights to leave a normal life. we forced to live in tents for our lifetimes. every time moving from place to place, packing our stuff and our tents, waiting for Aids for our daily needs. living in pain and not knowing what our future looks like. we lost our belongingness inside our own country.
that was our life for 20 years. after those years of pain and suffering, we were happy and in favor of the peace treaty in 2018. our hope was finally to have back our rights, our home, our normal life, our belongingness. but those hopes appeared to be impossible. the government refused to relate with our feeling, feeling of suffering and loss. instead, our lose became to be his gain to his power.
the fact thousands of our people died in this unnecessary war, thousands of us became displaced, no home, no future, thousands of us left the country and became refugees and unwanted people everywhere, thousands of us died in a way for searching a safe place, with no shame and no respect he said "we loss nothing". for him yes, he gained, for us yes we lost everything.
remembering our fallen during the war and the massive loss we encountered after the war.
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