Post-independence Eritrean Migrants Transiting Through/Living in Sudan: Driven by Politics or Economics

Irregular cross-/trans-national mobility has increasingly become one of the most talked about subjects in the public domain so much in the press, among academics, policy-makers, and parliamentarians. The level of irregular out-migration of people from Eritrea to neighboring and far off countries has drastically risen and remains unabated since the eruption of the second Ethio-Eritrean war (1998-2000). With an estimated 400 to 5,000 Eritreans reportedly fleeing either to Sudan or Ethiopia, Eritrea has been dubbed as the “fastest emptying country”. Using methodological triangulation and cross-national field work conducted both in Sudan and Eritrea, this article unravels the principal factors behind the country’s disproportionate youth emigration arte. It aims to illuminate whether post-2000 Eritrea’s massive irregular youth “exodus” reflects its political or economic woes. It also tangentially touches on whether any rigorous analysis about such “phenomenal” irregular youth efflux from a country who prides itself of considering its biggest asset as nothing, but its human resources should heed to regional and international politico-economic factors into the equation under scrutiny. The center of such inquiry lies debunking the tautology of the simpleton of narratives advanced, on the one hand, by migrant “exporting” government authorities and by rights groups and most researchers, on the other hand. The paper ultimately discusses the politically sensitive nature of labelling contemporary Eritrean migrants: Are they all refugees, economic migrants, or something else?