In 2025, most asylum applications in Luxembourg were lodged by people from the East African country Eritrea. Lëtzebuerger Journal spoke with three Eritreans living in Luxembourg to better understand their home country – its culture, its history, and the realities that drove them to flee.
Dawit (name changed for anonymity) shows me a YouTube video of a tourist visiting Eritrea. The video is titled "I Visited The North Korea of Africa!(Eritrea)!". "Most Eritreans probably don’t like this comparison [between Eritrea and North Korea], but I get it, " Dawit affirms.
Even after fleeing to Luxembourg, which is over 4.500 kilometres away from Eritrea, all three interviewees wish to remain anonymous out of fear that pro-government ears could hear their criticism. Some of them have only recently fled Eritrea and the fear of unknown repercussions follows them.
Life in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital
"Asmara is also called Piccola Roma, little Rome, " Dawit explains, who used to live in Eritrea's capital. He fondly remembers it as a lively city. Traces of the Italian colonial rule, which lasted from 1890 to 1941, are ubiquitous in the city. He speaks of the best cappuccino, pizzas and pastries being found in Asmara. Elderly people sometimes still speak Italian. The South European impact is also visible in the architecture, fused with Eritrean heritage – so much so, that the capital was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2017 as “an exceptional example of early modernist urbanism at the beginning of the 20th century and its application in an African context”, as noted on the UNESCO website.
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