(Asmara 19/04/2023)

Eritrean Christians are mourning the passing away of a pastor who was detained for ten years for belonging to a banned faith group. Pastor Tesfay Seyoum was a founding leader of the Eritrean Meserete Kristos church and suffered with brain tumour during his imprisonment and was released for medical treatment but not discharged from imprisonment at the time of his death. 

Members of his church and many friends and fellow believers in the diaspora were trying to get him to a place where he can get treatment for his condition and are said to be distraught about his death and the difficulties that have since arisen with regards to his final resting place.

As he is a leader of a banned church and couldn’t get permission to be buried in the burial grounds around his village of origin in Asmara, that belong to the Orthodox Church, his body remained unburied for over a week, in contradiction to the cultural norms that require bodies to be buried as close to the time of death as possible. 

Eritrea banned all faith groups not belonging to the four recognised groups – Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran Evangelical and Islam and consequently regularly imprisons people for belonging to and participating in activities of the banned groups. Thousands of Eritreans have been imprisoned over the years. Many are tortured for refusing to recant their faith. Currently there are close to 500 such prisoners and some have been in incommunicado detention since 2022. 

Speaking about the deceased, a fellow believer in the US stated “Tesfay was the most decent and humble person I know, I was with him when he started the church that he was a pastor of. It was our hope that he would get medical treatment for his illness following his decade long detention”. 

The family are hoping that the funeral would be allowed to take place soon and that their ordeal would be over. Orthodox Church priests who allow the burial of Eritreans from banned churches come under a lot of pressure and this situation is increasingly causing distress to both the surviving families and the wider community.