Reporters Without Borders has condemned the arrest and conscription into the Eritrean army of the local correspondent of the radio station Voice of America (VOA) and called for the immediate release of him and 18 other jailed media workers in the country, which it said was "Africa's biggest prison for journalists."

The repatriation of Eritrean refugees from Sudan, which resumed last month, has been halted due to the start of the rainy season, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said.

For the first time in almost a year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has repatriated hundreds of Eritreans from Sudan after restarting a voluntary relocating operation that had been suspended because of the rainy season and prolonged by heightened border tensions between the two countries.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reached an agreement with the governments of Eritrea and Sudan on where to open a humanitarian corridor between the two countries to facilitate the repatriation of thousands of Eritrean refugees, the UNHCR has said.

The rate of malnutrition in Eritrea, now in the fourth year of the worst drought in a decade, is rising to alarming levels, with more than 1 in 5 children not getting enough to eat, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says. According to the agency, 21. 7 per cent of children are suffering from malnutrition; normally, a hunger rate of just 13 to 14 per cent is considered alarming.