It is a community rarely in the headlines, yet it carries weight. In the US midterm elections on 3 November, Colorado Democrat Joe Neguse won a fifth term in the House of Representatives. The son of Eritrean immigrants, he was the first Eritrean American to enter Congress.
He will not be the only lawmaker with roots in the Horn of Africa. According to the specialist newsletter Horn Horizons, Ilhan Omar, born in Mogadishu and representing Minneapolis, also secured a fifth term despite a federal inquiry into her immigration paperwork. Melat Kiros, 29, who came from Ethiopia as a baby, will also be part of the new Congress.
These wins come as Democrats take control of Congress. Horn Horizons argues that the new majority will be able to slow Donald Trump’s policy in the region without being able to steer it, and that Ethiopia should expect closer scrutiny in Washington.
Thousands of kilometres away, Asmara is addressing its citizens abroad in a very different tone. According to Eritrea’s Ministry of Information, public seminars have been held in recent days for nationals living in Germany, including in Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart and Frankfurt, as well as in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Led by diplomats, they focused on the situation at home, regional and global developments, and what the ministry describes as the current responsibilities of nationals.
On 31 October, similar gatherings took place in the United Arab Emirates and in Sydney. According to the same source, participants condemned what they called external hostility towards Eritrea and pledged to strengthen their organisation and their involvement in the national resilience programme.
The timing is no coincidence. A few days before the US vote, Ethiopia closed its embassy in Asmara and expelled ten Eritrean diplomats, accusing its neighbour of hostility. Eritrea responded by cutting all diplomatic ties with Addis Ababa. In this climate, President Isaias Afwerki’s government appears keen to tighten its bonds with a large and widely scattered diaspora whose political and financial support has long mattered to the country.
Successfully integrated into the institutions of their host countries while facing pressing calls from home, Eritreans abroad embody two sides of the same reality: a community of growing influence at a time when the Horn of Africa is entering a new period of turbulence.