On the 2,000th day since Eritrea's "Black Tuesday" crackdown on media in 2001, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) urged Eritreans abroad to demand explanations for the imprisonment of at least 14 journalists, four of whom are feared dead.

Reporters Without Borders reports that three Eritrean state media journalists were recently released after being held for several weeks at police station No. 5 in the capital, Asmara, but a fourth is still being held.

The Eritrean government and civil society have expressed optimism that efforts to combat female genital mutilation (FGM) were bearing fruit, saying the campaign against the practice was gaining support in rural villages where excision was most common.

Credible Eritrean sources in Asmara and abroad have told Reporters Without Borders that poet and playwright Fessehaye “Joshua” Yohannes, who was a journalist with the now-banned weekly Setit, died in detention on 11 January. “The death of Fessehaye Yohannes would be an appalling tragedy, one made all the more unbearable by the accommodating attitude of European governments towards Eritrea,” Reporters Without Borders said.

Reporters Without Borders has called on the Eritrean government to urgently produce evidence that three journalists illegally held since September 2001 are still alive, as information from credible sources indicates they died in the course of the past 20 months in a detention centre at a place called Eiraeiro, in a remote northeastern desert.