Eritrean exiles build network to topple Afwerki

TEL AVIV (Somaliguardian) –  An Eritrean opposition movement operating out of a warehouse in southern Tel Aviv says it has built the most organized diaspora network yet assembled against President Isaias Afwerki, and is actively courting political support from the United States, Israel and Gulf states, according to a Haaretz report published September 18, 2026.

The movement, known as Brigade N’Hamedu – roughly “For the Homeland” in Tigrinya – says it now coordinates community structures in Israel, the United States, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Ethiopia, drawing on a diaspora Haaretz estimated at nearly two million Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers. Formed in 2022, the group elected a 51-member international council last month through 17 simultaneous community votes held around the world, including one attended by roughly 1,300 people in Nes Ziona, Israel.

Afwerki, 82, has led Eritrea since its 1993 independence from Ethiopia. The country has held no national elections, has not implemented its constitution, and has shut down its independent press. Conscription can begin at age 14 with no fixed discharge date, and Haaretz cited a UN report from May 2025 documenting surveillance and reprisals against Eritreans that extend into exile.

Diplomatic outreach, not a foreign operation

Dawit Teferi, the movement’s Canadian-Eritrean treasurer, told Haaretz he spends his time in Washington meeting members of Congress and US officials. “The U.S., Israel, and the Gulf states have a major interest in having a partner in the Red Sea region,” he said, adding that the movement is “in a very good position” despite not yet having secured formal recognition.

Movement leader Beyene Gerezgher, who operates from Addis Ababa, was more cautious, telling Haaretz that contacts in Washington “do not yet amount to official recognition” and that “we cannot bring about a democratic revolution in Eritrea on our own; we need international support.” According to the research organization Crisis Group, Ethiopia has openly hosted the movement since early 2025, giving it what Gerezgher called “a free hand to operate.”

Haaretz’s reporting describes a diaspora movement seeking outside backing for a future push against Afwerki’s government. It does not report any UAE or Israeli government decision, operation or plan to remove Afwerki, and no Israeli, Emirati or US official is quoted endorsing regime change in Eritrea.

The backdrop: Washington just lifted sanctions on Asmara

The Haaretz feature published one day after a separate, unrelated development: the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced on September 18 that it had rescinded 2021 sanctions on Eritrea’s ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, the Eritrean Defence Force, and state-linked entities including the Red Sea Trading Corporation, according to the Associated Press and Reuters. Those sanctions were imposed by the Biden administration over Eritrea’s role backing Ethiopian federal forces during the 2020–2022 Tigray war, in which UN investigators documented mass killings, sexual violence and abductions.

The Trump administration said the move was intended to “advance US regional interests” as Red Sea shipping faces continued threats from Houthi forces in Yemen near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, close to Eritrea’s port of Assab. A separate Magnitsky Act sanction against Eritrean defense forces chief of staff Filipos Woldeyohannes remains in place, and US arms-export restrictions on Eritrea’s security services are unaffected.

The sanctions move and the Haaretz feature on Brigade N’Hamedu are separately reported developments; Haaretz does not draw a connection between the two, and this report treats them as distinct.

Israel’s own Eritrean fault line

The report also traces the movement’s roots to violent clashes between pro- and anti-Afwerki Eritreans in south Tel Aviv in September 2023, in which more than 110 people were injured. Similar clashes occurred the same period in Sweden, Germany, Canada and the US. A May 2025 UN report cited by Haaretz found at least nine Eritreans have been killed in Israel since the 2023 unrest.

Community organizers quoted in the piece, including Atekilti Abraham Michael and Mulu Sultan – both longtime Eritrean residents of Israel – described personal costs from their activism, including relatives detained or conscripted in Eritrea, and called for Israeli authorities to distinguish between regime opponents and government supporters at community events.

Gerezgher told Haaretz the movement has contacts “from ordinary people to senior figures in the army and government” inside Eritrea and believes momentum is building toward a decisive moment, though he did not give a timeline. “The dictator won’t just let us walk right in,” he said. “We are ready for the right moment, and I think we are close – very close.”

Contact us: info@somaliguardian.com