E ritrean activists sued the European Union (EU) on Wednesday and asked it to halt 80 million euros in aid to the east African nation, saying the money funded a scheme built on forced labour.
The Netherlands-based foundation Human Rights for Eritreans (FHRE) filed a lawsuit to the Amsterdam district court, accusing the EU of financing a major road renovation project that relies on forced labour and of failing to carry out due diligence.
Some of the labourers belong to Eritrea’s national service, condemned as forced labour and slavery by the United Nations and European Parliament, according to lawyers backing the lawsuit.
The Netherlands is host to a large number of Eritrean migrants and pays toward the project as a member of the EU.
The European Commission - the EU’s executive arm - did not provide a comment by deadline. The EU last year said it would monitor the work to ensure labourers were paid and treated well.
Eritrea’s information minister, Yemane Ghebremeskel, questioned the credibility of the FHRE and said the lawsuit was typical of its “demonisation campaigns”.
“The accusations emanate from a very small but vocal group, mostly foreigners who have an agenda of ‘regime change’ against Eritrea,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email.
Eritrea signed a peace deal with Ethiopia in 2018, raising expectations that a long-standing system of universal conscription would be scaled back. Yet Human Rights Watch last year said no changes had been made to a “system of repression”.