Can Eritrea’s Afwerki hold on to power after the Tigray war?

The Eritrean president finds himself in an increasingly difficult situation.

On March 22, 2021, the European Union sanctioned Eritrea’s National Security Agency with an asset freeze and travel ban, alleging that the agency was “responsible for serious human rights violations in Eritrea, in particular arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances of persons and torture committed by its agents.” In response, the Eritrean Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement dismissing the sanctions as “baseless and offensive”. In the statement, the ministry did not address any of the allegations relating to the agency’s actions within Eritrea but instead focused on what it perceives as the EU’s support for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) – the governing party of Ethiopia’s Tigray region which is currently engaged in a bloody conflict with the Ethiopian government. “[T]he EU has been doggedly working to save and bring back to power the defunct TPLF clique, and to undermine the region’s own efforts to address challenges and advance comprehensive and durable cooperation,” the Eritrean foreign ministry said. “The EU has particularly targeted Eritrea in a futile attempt to drive a wedge between Eritrea and Ethiopia.”