Date: Friday, 19 December 2025
Sweden said Friday it believed Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak, held without trial in Eritrea for 24 years with no news of his fate, was still alive.
The claim came after the Swedish government's first visit to the repressive nation in more than 30 years.
Isaak, now 61, was among a group of around two dozen people, including senior cabinet ministers, members of parliament and independent journalists, seized in a September 2001 purge of autocrat Isaias Afwerki's critics.
Isaak has never been charged and has been held incommunicado almost the entire time.
Asmara has provided no information about his whereabouts or health over the years.
"Our assessment is that he is alive and we haven't received any new information during this visit that contradicts that assessment," Stenergard told AFP, refusing to disclose the information their assessment was based on.
"I made clear how important it was that he be released and reunited with his family," she said.
- Family hopeful -
Isaak's daughters, Betlehem and Danait, said in a statement on Friday they were optimistic after Stenergard's visit.
"We must assume that the Swedish ministry for foreign affairs has received some form of assurance in connection with the visit that our father will soon be released," they said.
"At the same time, serious question marks remain. Eritrea has not yet responded to the foreign minister's request of September 25 to release our father on humanitarian grounds."
They also said it was a "great disappointment" that Sweden failed to secure "unambiguous proof of life".
Stenergard told AFP the Isaak case was "hard".
"He has been jailed for 24 years without trial, without consular contacts," she stressed.
Her visit to Eritrea was the first by a Swedish minister since Sweden recognised Eritrea in 1993.
Human rights campaign group Amnesty International considers Isaak a prisoner of conscience.
He fled to Sweden in 1987 during Eritrea's struggle against Ethiopia, but returned after Eritrea won its independence in 1993.
He co-founded Setit, the country's first independent newspaper, which in 2001 began reporting on a group of ministers and politicians known as the G-15, who were criticising Afwerki and demanding elections.
Earlier this month, Eritrea released 13 people detained without trial for nearly 18 years, though Human Rights Concern-Eritrea (HRCE) said Asmara was still holding "over 10,000 prisoners of conscience".
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