10 footballers from Eritrean national squad seek asylum in Botswana

Eritrea lost 3-1 to Botswana in a game played in Francistown, the second-largest city in the southern African country, on Tuesday.

Ten players from the Eritrean national football team have stayed in Botswana to seek asylum after traveling to the country to play a qualifying match for the 2018 World Cup, Reuters reported.

But according to the team’s officials, 10 of the players, who are now seeking asylum in Botswana, refused to board the plane home despite the intervention of the Eritrean ambassador in Botswana.

Following their refusal to return home the players were taken into custody at a police station in Francistown for interrogation.

Dr Abane Ghebremestel of Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights said they are calling on the civil society and others, to help them stop the authorities from deporting the players as their lives are endangered.

Bayford said the EMDHR was anxious that the players, who are said to be part of the Eritrean army, are likely to be charged with desertion if they are sent back to Eritrea, which is punishable by death.

Eritreans fleeing the country are considered as traitors and if caught could be subjected to tortures and will eventually be thrown to the country’s notorious prisons where they usually serve indefinite jail terms.

The country has withdrawn or abstained from several recent global football competition due to the frequent defections. Six Eritrean players also escaped after a match in Angola in 2013.

A senior official at the Botswana Football Association said that it has yet to establish why the players refused to leave with their teammates.

Military service is compulsory in Eritrea, where President Isaias Afwerki has been in power since independence in 1993.

The government has become increasingly repressive and dictatorial with zero-tolerance for dissent.

Now there are an estimated 10,000 political prisoners with majority in jail without trial. The United Nations Human Rights Council wants the extended investigation to consider whether Eritrea was committing crimes against humanity, a level of offence that can be prosecuted by the worldwide Criminal Court.