The closure of Christian-run health centers in Eritrea follows a distressingly familiar pattern: in all too many nations today, Christians are not simply subjected to sporadic mob violence or harassment, which is heinous enough in itself; instead, they are persecuted by government and law enforcement officials who should understand that it is their responsibility to protect their Christian citizens. This should be a spur to the United Nations and international human rights agencies to place sanctions on these governments until they act to end this persecution. In this particular case, the closure of these health centers puts the entire population at risk.
“Christian run health centres shut by Eritrean government,” by Ruth Sax, Premier, June 18, 2019:
The Eritrean government has shut down health centres run by the Catholic Church after they refused to hand them over.
Eritrean government officials asked health centre administrators to sign a document approving the handover.
However, most of the administrators refused to sign and told the officials to talk to the church leaders.
Security officers then removed the staff from the health centres and closed them down. It is not yet known why the Eritrean government took this action.
It’s part of a wider disagreement between Christians and the Eritrean government….
The closure of the health centres also follows the arrest of 30 underground Christians in Eritrea at the beginning of June who were members of a Pentecostal church, an unregistered and therefore illegal denomination….
