
September 30: Eritrea’s Voice Returns to the World Stage
Sharron Yemane reflects on President Isaias Afwerki’s first address to the UN General Assembly in September 1993 and its significance for Eritrean sovereignty.
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Sharron Yemane reflects on President Isaias Afwerki’s first address to the UN General Assembly in September 1993 and its significance for Eritrean sovereignty.

Foreign Minister Osman Saleh used Eritrea’s address to challenge the annual UN ritual itself, placing economic justice, peace and a more equitable international order at the centre of the country’s message.

Washington has removed any remaining doubt about why Abdel Fattah al-Burhan did not attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The African Union’s own UNGA81 readouts left Ethiopia out. A jointly agreed communiqué from the same diplomatic round shows that Ethiopia and the Pretoria Agreement were explicitly discussed. The discrepancy deserves an explanation.

Council members condemned continued Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and threats to commercial navigation through the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb, stressing navigational freedoms under international law as fighting moves closer to the strait.

Foreign Minister Osman Saleh told the UNGA81 plenary on sea-level rise that existing baselines and maritime boundaries must be preserved, framing Eritrea's Red Sea waters as a question of sovereignty and climate adaptation alike.

Eritrea's foreign minister raised what Asmara calls the provocative acts of Ethiopia's Prosperity Party towards its neighbours with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in New York, alongside Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb governance and support for a united, sovereign Sudan.

Eritrea's foreign minister told a UNGA81 meeting on the right to development that trade barriers, debt burdens and unilateral coercive measures keep developing countries from setting their own policies — five days after Washington lifted sanctions tied to Executive Order 14046.

At the 81st UN General Assembly, President Taye Atske Selassie blamed “reckless external actors” for instability in the Horn — two days after seven Ethiopian armed groups formed an alliance against Abiy Ahmed's government. The record at home, the dispute with Eritrea and questions over Sudan tell a more complicated story.

The African Union and United Nations met in New York on September 21 to discuss preventive diplomacy across Africa, but Ethiopia was absent from the published list of crises even as a seven-group armed alliance moved to remove Abiy Ahmed's government.

The Africa Group's choice of an Eritrean diplomat to lead the 2026 UN Social Forum is neither a takeover of the Human Rights Council nor an absolution from scrutiny. It is something more consequential than the outrage allows: a sovereign African state returning to normal multilat

The article critiques the UN's ongoing scrutiny of Eritrea, highlighting the hypocrisy in its human rights mandate. It argues that the UNHRC's selective enforcement undermines its principles of universality and impartiality.