BERLIN (AP) — Police were executing raids in six German states Wednesday against a group that authorities say “is part of an international network whose aim is to overthrow the government in Eritrea."
Germany's federal prosecutor’s office is accusing 17 suspects of founding or being members of the German branch of Brigade N’Hamedu, which it defines as a terrorist organization.
Eritrea has long been described as one of the world’s most repressive countries by human rights groups, and some members of its divided diaspora have clashed violently at times.
The prosecutors said the investigations “suggest that the suspects assumed senior positions" within the group. The German offshoot has been active since at least 2022 was involved in violence at events connected to the Eritrean government.
The prosecutor’s office said the organization coordinated violent riots at Eritrea festivals in Giessen on Aug. 20, 2022, and on Aug. 7-8, 2023, as well as the seminar of an Eritrean association in Stuttgart on Sept. 16, 2023. Numerous police officers were injured at the events, some of them seriously, and dozens of protesters were detained.
The state interior minister of Baden-Württemberg, which includes Stuttgart, said that 56 people were sentenced to prison following the riots in the city in 2023, though some of those sentences can still be appealed, German news agency dpa reported.
Prosecutors also say that some members of the association considered violence against German state institutions and police officers to be legitimate.
More than 200 federal and state police officers searched 19 properties — eight in Hesse, four in North Rhine-Westphalia, three in Bavaria, two in Baden-Württemberg and one each in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Rhineland-Palatinate. Another search took place in Denmark at the same time, dpa reported. No arrests have been made.
The prosecutor's statement also noted that another person who is suspected of holding a senior position within Brigade N’Hamedu in the Netherlands and Germany "has recently been sentenced by a Dutch court to a prison term of several years on account of his participation in clashes in The Hague” last February.
The prosecutor's office did not identify any of the accused by name, in line with German privacy rules.
Separately, a court in Sweden jailed six people on Wednesday for violent rioting in connection with an Eritrean cultural festival in 2023, Swedish news agency TT reported.
Five people were sentenced to five months in prison, while a sixth person was sentenced to six months in prison, according to TT.
At the time, hundreds of anti-government protesters stormed the festival. More than 50 people were injured and nearly 140 people were detained, TT reported.
As in German, Sweden is home to tens of thousands of people with Eritrean roots. The festival devoted to the cultural heritage of Eritrea is an annual event that has been held since the 1990s but has been criticized for allegedly serving as a promotional tool and source of money for the African nation’s government, according to Swedish media.
Exiles have attacked several festivals held by Eritrea’s diaspora in Europe, North America and Israel in recent years.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Eritrea over the years, many setting off into the deserts of Sudan and then North Africa in attempts to reach Europe.
FILE -A group of people is surrounded by police forces after riots at an Eritrea event in Stuttgart, Germany, Sept. 16, 2023. (Thomas Niedermueller/dpa via AP, File)
