Police in Germany has reconstructed the final moments of Emeka Okornkwo, who was stabbed to death by two men from Eritrea last weekend.

Detectives investigating the case said that the incident took place when two women left a night club early Sunday morning to catch a train at a nearby station in Frankfurt. The 29- year- old and 43- year-old females were waiting for their train when they were approached by two Eritreans who verbally harassed them demanding sex.

As the verbal assaults got worse, one of the Eritreans started spitting at the females. This is when Nigerian Emeka Okornkwo came to the women’s aid walking up between the victims and their attackers. After a short fight one of the Eritreans pulled out a knife and stabbed the Nigerian aiming at the left side of his chest.

The Nigerian collapsed immediately and died later in Hospital from the knife wounds to his heart. Last Thursday police arrested a 34-year-old Eritrean who is supposed to be the stabber. His 24-year-old companion was freed as no charges had been filed against him.

A group of 34 refugees (33 Eritreans and a Somali woman) has spent their first night in Italy in a former elementary school in the village of San Lupo, in the Sannio region, outside Benevento (not far from Naples).

They were welcomed by the mayor Irma de Angelis in accordance with the project “Small Municipalities, Large Solidarity”, as part of a wider EU initiative for the 12007-2013 period.

The refugees were also welcomed by representatives from the NGO’s “Connecting People” and the “Amistade Consortium” of Benevento. In the town hall there was a related event attended among others by Soulib Briss and Fabiola Conti from UNHCR Italy. The group of refugees began their ordeal five years ago, traversing several African countries; the group include nine women, two of whom pregnant.

“As mayor and citizen of San Lupo – said Irma de Angelis yesterday – I am pleased to be here today to welcome you and assure you that the town and the local people are happy to receive you. San Lupo, even if small, is generous and all of us will try to help you integrate in our territory”. Orazio Micalizzi, vice-president of ‘Connecting People’, which manages the facility offered in San Lupo as well as the welcome Center where the fefugges were housed before in Salina Grande (Trapani, Sicily), told the refugees:

“Our consortium, with the backing of Amistade, will assure you will get all the services that you need; at the end of the Easter holiday, the various activities provided by the project, starting from Italian language classes, and all the children will be promptly enrolled in local schools and kindergartens”.

Connecting People shall also handle the management of training, socialization and orientation programs, apprenticeships in small artisanal factories and tourism facilities in the area of Benevento. Giuseppe Lorenti, training and research manager at Connecting People stressed:

“the consortium shall ensure for the 24 month duration of the project all services and activities needed to achieve a true socio-economic integration of the recipients, aimed at ensuring them, once the project is over, the greatest possible degree of independence. Apart from the basic housing and foods services, the guests will be given cultural mediation services, social, first-aid and psychological assistance.”

As for San Lupo, it was rebuilt after an earthquake in the XV century on a spur of rock at 500 meters elevation now traversed by a municipal highway linking Benevento to the town of Campobasso. San Lupo is famous for its olive oil but its citizens over the past century have spread throughout the world, from North America to Australia, the country shall now reach, thanks to the newly arrived residents, a total population of some 800 people.

Remembering the 18th century fountain of Capodacqua and, through its saint, the ties to France, the mayor conclude a chat with MISNA saying: “Milca, a nine year old vivacious Eritrean girl, made me smile when she said: yes, I like San Lupo, but I was hoping that it had the sea..” Source(Misna)

A 27-year-old Eritrean who resides at the Marsa Open Centre in Malta was given a a six-year-jail term suspended for two years after pleading guilty to slightly injuring two police officers late on Friday.

The Marsa Open Centre is one of the two main open centres in Malta hosting asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants granted humanitarian protection  after their release from the detention centres.

The Times of Malta reports that Teame Gebremihret Tesfamaryam from Eritrea was thrown out of a bar in Rabat after he became noisy and the owner called the police.

After the incident police took him to the nearest police station in Rabat, a village just outside Malta, where he became aggressive.

According to the newspaper the Eritrean man became aggressive and started to attacked and resist two police men during his arrest.

Swedish newspapers report that a 52-year-old man has been charged with human trafficking of three young Eritrean females. The man is suspected of having smuggled three women in their 20s from Eritrea via Skavsta Airport in Nyköping into Sweden.

The women arrived from Milan on 24 February shortly before being intercepted by immigration officials of the airport raising suspicion as they travelled in a party of four together with a man.

After officials found out that they travelled with false passports, the women immediately started to point their finger at the man suspected to be the human trafficker.

Further investigation by the police revealed that the women had paid a total of $45000 to the smuggler.

Comment from one of our Eritrean American Readers:

I’m very ashamed of what my U.S. government is doing to my home country Eritrea. I find the baseless accusations against Eritrea to promote the agenda of neo-colonization absurd! I honestly regret voting for Barack Obama to the white house for the simple fact that not only did he fail to live up to the expectations most Americans had hoped for, but also the sermon of “change” he had preached throughout his election campaign turned out to be an illusion.

He deceived us.

Malcolm X was prophesying about Barack Obama and Susan Rice when he said, the re-colonizations of Africa will have a black face and a white mentality.

And as the old Turkish proverb goes…

” When the axe came into the forest, the trees said: the handle is one of us.”

Shame on you Obama !

Shame on you Susan Rice !

Shame on you United Nations!

God Bless Eritrea

God Bless America

God Bless the World

Eritreans Never Kneel Down ! Never Ever !

A six-year-old African girl is to be given an Irish passport following DNA tests that prove she is the daughter of an Irish soldier who died before she was born.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) had refused to accept that Martina Padwick was the daughter of Martin Padwick, a soldier from Cork who died in December 2002 shortly after returning from a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Asmara, the Eritrean capital.

The Irish government may now be required to offer her protection and make provision for her education, as all Irish children are legally entitled to free primary schooling.

The existence of the child, born in June 2003, has been known to the DFA since 2004, but officials refused to issue a passport on the basis that Martha Woldu Hagos, her mother, needed to “establish by formal means” the father’s identity. She met Padwick while working in the kitchen at the UN compound in Asmara.

The DFA agreed to carry out a DNA test last October after The Sunday Times highlighted the case.

Hagos said: “The DFA wrote to me last week to say the DNA test had proved that Martin was Martina’s father. I don’t know what to say, I am so happy. Actually I am the happiest woman in the whole of Eritrea right now.”

Anthony Joyce, a Dublin-based solicitor who represents Hagos and her daughter, claimed they had suffered while waiting for the government to recognise Martina as an Irish citizen. “Martha suffered discrimination in her community as a result of having a white child. She was living in poverty, and at one stage she considered putting Martina into an orphanage where she could be guaranteed food and shelter,” said Joyce.

“Martina’s case should send a warning to the DFA. In certain circumstances the government is obliged to have ‘due regard for the natural and imprescriptible rights of the child’ under the constitution. This case highlights the need for the state to prioritise applications for Irish passports from minors living abroad.”

Brian O’Shea, the Labour party spokesman on military affairs who raised Martina’s plight in the Dail, criticised the DFA’s handling of the case. “No Irish citizen should ever be treated in such a manner,” he said.

“This child was forced to live in what can be best described as adverse conditions in Eritrea for years, although she was an Irish citizen. The state had a responsibility to Martina, but didn’t fulfil its obligations to this girl. Any proposal by this child and her mother to come to Ireland should be treated as sympathetically as possible.”

Billy Timmins, the Fine Gael spokesman on foreign affairs, called on Micheál Martin, the foreign affairs minister, to introduce new procedures to ensure similar cases were dealt with more compassion.

John Weakliam, country director for Vita in Eritrea, an Irish charity that helped Hagos, believes there may be other children living in Asmara who were fathered by Irish peacekeepers. “God knows how many soldiers fathered children who still await their birth rights,” he said.

“There is a popular perception in Ireland that African women are queuing up to conceive and become a burden on our state. On the contrary, these mothers and their children suffer discrimination at home.”

Neil Nolan, a spokesman for the defence forces, said the military was aware of the case, but was unable to intervene. The DFA refused to comment. Source: (TimesOnline)

Listen to the American National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast on the bill by the Ugandan Parliament to increase penalties for homosexuality, in some cases making it punishable by death. Host Michel Martin talks to NPR’s East Africa Correspondent Gwen Thompkins about reaction to the anti-gay bill, what its passage could mean for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in Uganda and the contested role a group of American Evangelical pastors have played in drumming up support for the bill.

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Asmara

Berlin – Steffi Graf, the 22-time Grand Slam-winning tennis player, has turned her focus from the net to the viewfinder and published her first photo-reportage on Friday.

Under the title ‘The Children of Asmara’ the 40-year-old mother of two’s photographs represent the lives of kids living in the capital of Eritrea.

The German-language edition of National Geographic Magazine has published the pictures together with an article about her work in Eritrea.

Graf, who runs a foundation for the mental health of children called ‘Children for Tomorrow’, said that ‘I am not a person of many words,’ according to a statement from her publisher.

She said that as a teenager she had seriously considered becoming a photographer, rather than pursuing a career in tennis. Graf was accompanied on her trip to Asmara by seasoned photo- journalist Gerd Ludwig, who instructed her in the art.

In 2007, she travelled to Asmara to inaugurate the first Kindergarten of  ”Children for Tomorrow”. Steffi must have been deeply moved by the kindness she experienced from the Eritrean people living in poverty. After her trip she said,

“The friendliness and joyfulness of the Eritrean people is something to see considering their truly unbelievable conditions but I was still personally dismayed how much the children especially suffer from the economic problems of the country.”

Visit: National Geographic Deutschland

By Olad Hassan

Most of the Eritrean national football squad has disappeared in Nairobi- Kenya, according to Nicholas Musonye- Secretary of the Counsil of East and Central Africa Football Assocoations (CECAFA) on Monday.

The Eritrean players were among twelve Cecafa teams arrived in Nairobi to participate the 33rd addition of Cecafa tournament, and they were expected to go back home on Saturday night after they were eliminated from the tournament in the quarter-final stage by Rwanda.

“No single player was in the hotel in the last minutes of their departure, very view of them including the Coach could be seen on board their bus to the airport.”, said one of the workers of Gulf Palace Hotel- where they where resided after they knocked out from the competition.

Sources indicate, the head coach Negash Teklit and an army colonel who accompanied the national team are the only people who returned back to Eritrea. According to different sources 12 players are reported to be hiding in Nairobi with the target of seeking asylum in Kenya.

Asmara- Gulai Ezekiel Nelson has found an elixir to cure the feeling of hopelessness in times of hardship.

In the middle of the night, in Asmara and in the midst of one of the most difficult times the religious man blows away all fears and worries with his golden trumpet.

Because of severe draught in some parts of Eritrea, many people fear a poor harvest and renewed famine. Nonetheless, where there is hardship hope is not far away. There is a sweet melody coming out of the Lutheran Community Centre nearby, carrying a hopeful message through the night sky and far beyond the buildings and roof tops of the Eritrean capital. The message is “Praise the Lord” from Paul Gerhardt.

Ezekiel Nelson Gulai’s composition for hope works like this: Take a trumpet, a trombone and a tenor horn, blow into it with all your force and bring the air to vibrate, then your problems will be blown away for a while. “We want to praise God with everything we have,” says the 57- year old music teacher.

An import with obstacles

This time Gulai is joined by two very special musical compatriots: Jochen Hutt, Head of a Civil Engineering Office and Gustav Faigle, Conductor of a Brass Instrument Ensemble from Germany. They brought along six other Germans who made the 3000 km journey to bring Gulai new instruments and share their passion for music.

The journey had its first small obstacles at the stopover in Yemen, a country known for its reputation of tourist hijackings. At the airport in Sanaa the Germans draw the attention of airport officials because of their odd shaped luggage with the shiny and golden content. The officials screened the luggage at a special security checkpoint and placed stickers with the label “Fragile” on it.

However, things started to get really complex with the cargo when arriving at Asmara Airport. The day aliens from Mars should invade our Earth disembarking from their space ship with strange shaped luggage under their arms, the look on our face would not differ from the the look of the three customs officers in Asmara.

They must have been prepared for a lot of things on the late arrival flight from Sanaa, but surely not for eight Germans marching with strange looking and “Fragile” labelled bags through security customs. Gustav is the first person to be stopped. You could see how baffled the customs people were, while the laid-back German opened slowely his luggage. One of the custom officers made the first move asking, “Are you Musicians?”

Even before having finished explaining that the instruments should remain in the country as gifts, the second customs officer alerts his colleagues pointing to the next three suspicious looking bags. When they found another trumpet in the private suitcase of one of the Germans it was finally over with the patience of the officials. The supervisor on duty confiscated all instruments and said, “You need to pay customs for that!”

No chance that upright officials would allow gifts to enter the country without declaring them. The Germans say that it would have been impossible to fund the journey if they would have declared all their cargo officially before starting the trip.

This tour is not the first of its kind. Already several other groups from the region have flown to Asmara to provide aid in the form of musical instruments in the past. The projects are financed through private charities which organise small ventures and events in order to raise money for a good cause.

Before the instruments could be finally handed over to Neslon Gulay he had to overcome some bureaucratic hurdles. First the president of the Evangelial Lutheran Church in Asmara had to confirm that the presents are welcome.

Further, Gulai had to get a letter signed by the religious authority in charge. Finally, after having sorted out all the formalities, paper work and a ransom of 150 Euros Nelson Gulai was allowed to pick up his gifts.

Even if the Germans would have not managed to hand over the instruments to Gulai, the visit itself was already encouragement enough for the Christian community. “That you have come from far away shows how great your love is,” says Nelson Gulai. A different member adds, “This shows us that God has not forgotten us”.

For years, about five million Eritreans live in hardship in the Horn of Africa. Eritreans wants to be self sufficient and do it better than their southern neighbour Ethiopia. Eritrea has fought for decades a long war for independence with Ethiopia and tensions are still high due to an unsolved boarder dispute.

This explains why the country has an army of 400.000 soldiers. Once the young men and woman are old enough, they will be called up for military service. On top of an already weakened economy.

Nelson Gulai’s cause is to build something lasting in times of hardship. The big politics lies in the hands of God, at least not in his. He wants to teach young Eritreans the art of music, culture and spirituality giving them a chance to express themselves and to leave a lasting mark of their own.

His music schools are schools of the generations. ”If we have enough instruments,” says Gulai, “then the older ones can teach the younger. Even if the older generation has to go the military, we will not loose all the knowledge and skills at once.”

He founded three brass choirs with German support. More than thirty instruments delivered by communities in south-west Germany have helped several students in towns such as Asmara, Keren and Barentu to perform music. The new instruments are for a new choir in the town of Mendeferra, about an hour’s drive south of Asmara.

“Things start to roll”, says Nelson Gulai with his eyes fixed to the wall and a soft smile. His dream is a big concert at Christmas with all the trombone choirs and his German friends sitting in the audience. “In order for you to see how big your plant is already grown,”Gulai says. (Article edited from Stuttgarter Zeitung.)

Emergency services in Shanghai are attending the scene of a crash involving a Boeing MD-11 freighter operated by cargo carrier Avient Aviation.

Seven crew members were on board the aircraft, and initial indications point to at least three fatalities.

Avient says that the accident occurred during take-off from Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 08:16.

The aircraft was operating a charter freight flight, says Avient, which has a UK headquarters although its fleet is registered in Zimbabwe.

“At this time, the full resources of Avient’s accident response team have been mobilised and will be devoted to co-operating with all authorities responding to the accident,” the carrier adds.

While the identity of the airframe has yet to be confirmed, Avient had only just taken delivery of its first MD-11F – registered Z-BAV, serial number 48408 – in the last few days.

This aircraft is an 18-year old Pratt & Whitney PW4000-powered example. Avient opted for the MD-11F to begin replacing its McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30Fs. Source: (RATI)

Michaele Ashko Shimayil

A North African man accused of beating his girlfriend to death with a PVC pipe did not waive his Miranda rights, Judge Larry Long was told during a suppression hearing Tuesday.

Michaele Ashko Shimayil is originally from Eritrea, a small country between Ethiopia and Sudan that borders the Red Sea, and speaks an obscure dialect called Kunama.

Officers say he confessed to beating 24-year-old Bakita Mohammed through his interpreter the night of the incident, but that interpreter testified Tuesday that he speaks Tigrinya, the country’s most widely-spoken language, and only a little Kunama.

Both prosecution and defense lawyers acknowledge that Shimayil did not understand the rights as interpreted after his arrest for the April 20 incident.

Shimayil’s confession ought to be admissible on “good faith,” Deputy State’s Attorney Randy Sample said, because the interrogating officers thought at the time that the defendant had voluntarily waived his right to self-incrimination.

“This is a situation where police believed the defendant was read his Miranda and understood it,” Sample said. “It’s our position that law enforcement did everything it could to apply Miranda.”

Ghevere Tsegoy, who was the interpreter for Shimayil the night of the incident, told Long that he got a call asking him to translate for an interrogation but was not aware of the severity of the crime.

“I expected a car accident, drunk driver,” Tsegoy said.

Despite never having taken part in such an intense interrogation, Tsegoy said Shimayil appeared to understand as he translated the six Miranda warnings and asked if Shimayil would like to waive his rights and speak to detectives.

“I asked if he understood, and he said ‘yes,’ ” he said.

Public Defender Jeff Larson asked Tsegoy if he’d been required to take an English proficiency test to get his job at A To Z Language Interpreters or if he’d had any training for law enforcement interpretation.

He had not.

Officer Patrick Marino arrested Shimayil for driving under the influence on the night of the attack. During his testimony Tuesday, Larson played back audio of that interaction, during which Shimayil said “no English – Kunama” on four occasions.

Once the suspect made it to the Law Enforcement Center, Marino learned more about the suspect’s ethnic origin and called for an interpreter who could speak either Tigrinya or Kunama. “With my limited knowledge on where he was from, I thought they were related languages,” he said.

The police report said the interview was conducted in “Tigrinya, the language of Kenya.” Detective Keith Gries interrogated Shimayil with Tsegoy’s help and said he thought the suspect understood the nature of the conversation and the severity of the crime.

“It was apparent to me that he knew why he was there,” he said.

Shimayil, testifying through a Kunama interpreter, said he can only communicate with basic words and phrases in Tigrinya. Long will need to rule on the defense’s motion to suppress evidence from the interrogation.

Shimayil’s jury trial is tentatively scheduled to begin Dec. 7. Source; (Argusleader)