Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Swiss development aid to Eritrea is cut after asylum tensions

Swiss development aid for Eritrea is stopped
Swiss development aid for Eritrea is stopped Keystone-SDA

Switzerland is ending its development aid to Eritrea, citing frustrations with the African country’s refusal to take back rejected asylum seekers.

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

According to an external evaluation, too little progress had been made in the area of migration, a spokesperson for the Swiss foreign ministry told Swiss public broadcaster SRF.

Relations between Switzerland and Eritrea have improved, said Michael Steiner, spokesperson for the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA).

It has been possible to strengthen vocational training. However, no major progress had been made in the area of migration, he added.

+ Eritrean asylum issue stumps Swiss politicians

Switzerland is working on being able to return rejected asylum seekers to their home country. Eritrea is not prepared to accept them.

According to the SRF report, the aid is to be discontinued at the end of May. The decision was made independently of the federal government’s cost-cutting measures, according to the radio report.

More

Translated from German with DeepL/mga

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

Coming soon Lost Cells A podcast uncovering the human stories behind private stem cell banking's promises and failures. Get notified

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR