How I Escaped Africa’s Most Repressive State

In his native Eritrea, Dr. Berhane Asmelash was a military doctor who treated soldiers on both sides of the brutal war with Ethiopia that spanned much of the last two decades.

Despite his service, he was arrested and tortured for nearly a year for the crime of leading a Christian congregation in a country without freedom of religion or expression. He witnessed his fellow prisoners taken away for extrajudicial killings.

After seeking asylum in the UK, he is now a Church of England vicar and works to help Christians still being persecuted by the brutal regime, watching on as the situation becomes more and more dire in the wake of the Tigray War.

Correction : June 23, 2021
An earlier version of this video showed footage of the Eritrean-Ethiopian War (1998-2000) when referencing the present Tigray War.

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