Nakfa, symbol of Eritrean liberation, struggles with new foes

NAKFA, Eritrea, April 22 (AFP) — In the 12 years since Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia, this remote northern town has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom evolving into a veritable museum of liberation and lending its name to the national currency.

Now, Nafka, the money and the place in the heart of one of impoverished Eritrea’s poorest regions, faces new economic and humanitarian struggles as the country tries to capitalize on its hard-won sovereignty.

At an altitude of 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) and surrounded by arid mountains in the Northern Red Sea region, Nafka, the town, was chosen as headquarters for the Eritrean rebels in 1978 for its strategic location.

Then as now, it is difficult to reach: there are no paved roads and access is limited to a single, rocky and sinuous dirt track.

Relentlessly bombed by the Ethiopian air force, Nafka is still home to numerous small cave dwellings used by guerrillas during the 1961 to 1991 war.

Memories of the bombing remain fresh in the minds of the town’s inhabitants.

“Every time we heard the Ethiopian planes, we would run back home,” says Asmaret, a mother of two who still in one of the caves and one of the women whom the Eritrean government says made up a third of the guerrilla army.

“They were always there,” she says, as a young child squirms on her back. “Sometimes, they even dropped bombs at night.”

Around her home lie the remains of a school, a church and a mosque, all three of which were destroyed by the bombs. A few kilometers (miles) away, the guerrillas ran an underground school and hospital.

Now, they are gone and the town is largely composed of recently constructed aboveground sheds made of corrugated iron and old ruined buildings, indications of the extreme poverty faced by people here.

In Eritrea as a whole, 37 percent of the nearly four million population is considered “extremely poor” by international standards, meaning they live on less than 10 dollars (7.70 euros) per month.

In the Northern Red Sea region, that figure is 55 percent, the highest rate in the country, according to a survey conducted by Asmara, the World Bank and the United Nations.

Shortages of potable water are frequent due to recurrent drought and a lack of easily reachable uncontaminated ground moisture and the region has a 17 percent mortality rate from diarrhoea.

The lone foreign relief agency here, Mercy Corps International, says most Nafka residents must walk three to four kilometers (1.8 to 2.5 miles) for water and live on only a quarter of the 20 liters a day that the World Health Organization recommends as a minimum per person amount for all activities.

Mercy Corps has recently begun construction on three potable water reservoirs and three public fountains in Nakfa but while grateful, many here say the project won’t keep them here.

“There’s no work in Nakfa,” sighs a teenager with a friend who was listening with half an ear to a nearby conversation about irrigation work.

“I want to go to Sudan,” says the other. “There, it’s possible to find work.”

Under the blazing sun, another female ex-fighter remembers wartime hardships with nostalgia, lamenting that conditions in Nafka are now worse.

“Life was better before,” she said. “There was a real brotherhood among soldiers. Today, life is so difficult.”

Far from here in the capital of Asmara, Nafka, the money, also struggles as the Eritrean government tries to deal with a chronic shortage of foreign currency.

After outlawing nearly all transactions in foreign currency in January, the government last week said violators of the new rules will be subject to two-year jail terms and heavy fines.

The official exchange rate is 15 Nakfa to the dollar, but on the black market it fetches around 20 Nakfa, something Asmara is trying to crush.