Satellite Imagery of the Sawa military camp, including the Warsai Yikealo Secondary School, recorded in January 2015.
Imagery © DigitalGlobe - Maxar Technologies 2019; Source: Google Earth
Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and other senior government officials presided over the 38th graduation ceremony of secondary school students from the Sawa military training center on July 11.
Though graduation ceremonies are ordinarily a cause for celebration and the promise of a new future, for many young Eritreans, Sawa’s graduation ceremonies sadly mark the loss of both—and the start of a cruel indefinite national service.
The Eritrean government since 2003 has forced thousands of secondary school students each year from across the country to complete their final year of school at Sawa, where they study alongside completing compulsory military training and political education.
Students have described life in Sawa as incredibly harsh, with commanding officers providing students with limited food and water and subjecting them to forced labor. Military officers often mete out violent punishments—including for minor infractions, such as oversleeping—while female students report sexual exploitation and abuse.
Those graduating from Sawa then get channeled into a cruel system of compulsory national service that Human Rights Watch and United Nations experts have long documented as indefinite, coercive, and abusive.
Based on their examination results, graduates are forced either into military units or civilian national service positions. Some are assigned to study at the country’s government-run colleges from where they are also assigned national service—including as teachers—with little say or choice about where they live, work, or serve. On paper, national service is limited to 18 months; in reality, Eritreans remain in military or civilian assignm
