Street Children (Eritrea)

‘Suedwestpresse’ now published this article about a hospital in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. There hospitals are so much in need of nurses they even hire people who aren’t even qualified. Thus once a year a nurse from Germany goes there to give these Eritrean nurses some teaching. She says that often she tells them about things that are more or less common knowledge in industrial nations but not in Eritrea like how to disinfect your hands properly, what pieces of advise to give to a nursing mother, how to handle people with this or that disease – e.g. brain infection -, how to treat newborns and preemies, what to feed to an underfed person etc.

I “read up” on it a little. It seems to be a means of retaining power in a nation with no Constitution, no elected leaders and no political process. It seems like “Eritrea” is a vacant lot with a name and people.
I found this statement by the Father who ran one of the hospitals and it seemed to sum up what I read very nicely:
“Said Father Zerai: “The government is obsessed with having control over everything and everyone. It sees the Catholic Church as a threat because we are part of an international network and ask questions.””
The law appears to apply to all religions equally but I could find no mention of Muslim hospitals in the country being closed so maybe there weren’t any in the first place. It also ended religious schools and agriculture projects.

Well, Joe, I can’t say for sure whether or not this is a case of Catholophobia, but it’s definitely going to take down the influence of the Roman-Catholic church – whether it’s intentionally or not. I can totally see why some would interpret this as part of a religious conflict, but I can’t say for sure as I never talked to those who were involved.
—-—-—-—-——
News: Twelve years ago the Eritrean government made it illegal to circumcise girls for traditional reasons. They argue that this practice is just too traumatizing and dangerous as usually narcosis is not involved, the area is not sterile and already used razors are used for the circumcising. Still some women come at night or at dawn and ask for ‘circumcising ladies’ to circumcise their daughters as young as 3 to 5 years. The thing is that after giving up their job many circumcising ladies were left without any regular income and thus jump on it for the money – despite fearing they could get arrested and locked up in jail for years. Thus to make the decision easier for them the aid-organization ‘Archemed’ (https:// www. archemed. org/ online-spenden) donates a goat to former circumcising ladies to make them earn a living as goat keepers. In these urban areas this is a highly respected job and by having a big herd of goats you can actually gain a lot of respect. By the way my source is ‘Die Zeit’.

Do you think this is an attempt to remove Catholic influence from a region in the furtherance of a religious dispute by militants of another religion which has in the past attempted to remove Christianity from it’s lands?
I am wondering if you thought this might actually be related to the religious conflict they are waging against us?

‘Domradio’ says that the government of Eritrea now shut down all hospitals run by the Roman-Catholic church. Reason is that ‘for the sake of safety all hospitals in Eritrea must be property of the government’ which in this case is impossible as a hospital can’t be owned by both the church and the government.