ASMARA (AFP) — Nimbly peeling a spiky cactus fruit, eight-year-old Kibrab offers its sweet orange flesh to a sharp-suited young Eritrean.
It is “beles” time in Asmara — the annual return of Eritrea’s scattered diaspora and harvest time for the prickly pears they are named after.
Collected from the steep mountainsides surrounding the capital Asmara, the wild cactus crop provides a welcome cash injection for poor families.
Even more than the beles fruit, the 70,000 “beles” visiting from overseas also bring a vital economic boost, which according to some estimates amounts to half of Eritrea’s gross domestic product.
“We ‘beles’ Eritreans come every year around July and August, the same time as the beles fruit are ready, so we get called the same,” said a 28-year-old Eritrean-British businessman, who asked not to be named, who has lived in London since leaving as a child.
“It’s a positive name, because our relatives here know we bring help for the rest of the year.”
Remittances from some 850,000 Eritreans living abroad — a fifth of the country’s 4.2 million population — have a major impact in a country with an annual gross national income per capital of only 220 dollars (160 euros), according to 2005 World Bank figures.
Many fled Eritrea’s devastating 30-year liberation war against Ethiopia, helping fund it from abroad. Eritrea achieved independence in 1993, but is still recovering from a subsequent, bitter 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia.
Cash from remittances is vital for the government, too, which takes a two-percent cut of all income earned by Eritreans overseas — technically a voluntary fee but widely enforced through community pressure.
“It’s something we have to do if we want to come back to visit,” said Michael who, like many, left for the United States more than 20 years ago after he was wounded fighting against Ethiopia.
“There’s a duty not only to help our family, but that we — who have the dollars and economic freedom of the West — should use that to help Eritrea.”
State-run media heap praise on diaspora donations, lauding them as “contributions to the national development” and support for the families of those killed fighting for Eritrea.
“Beles” time brings a cosmopolitan touch to Asmara’s Independence Avenue as young returnees speak in accents carried from elsewhere in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America. They mingle in the Bar Royal drinking coffee and beer and showing off the latest fashions from their adopted homelands.
But unlike older generations — who remember firsthand the sacrifices of the bloody liberation war — many younger “beles” say they are growing more distant from Eritrea, raising concern that remittances could drop off in the future.
“It is understandable that the longer people are away, the more links fade,” said a 26-year-old Eritrean-German, who also declined to give his name, visiting Asmara for the second time.
“I am proud of my roots, but I don’t have much in common with family here. I find it hard to imagine what my life would be like if I had had to fight, or even just do national service like people here.”
Asmara makes massive efforts to drum up patriotic support amongst the diaspora, promoting international youth festivals and organising “get to know your country” tours around famous battlefields or tourist sites.
Last April, hundreds of young Eritreans from 10 countries met in the English city of Portsmouth for a “youth movement” conference of Eritrea’s only political party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ).
But some say they are uncomfortable at supporting a regime regularly criticised by rights groups for an iron-grip control they say involves arresting critics, persecuting religious minorities and closing independent media.
Even as the diaspora returns on holiday, Eritreans continue to leave the country — many illegally — risking jail or worse to sneak across the dangerous border into Sudan to begin their own desperate search to earn money that many send back home.
Some stay in Sudan, others aim for North America — where the US-based Eritrean community is estimated at between 500,000 and 750,000 — or risk the sea crossing to Italy and Europe. From there, many then head for Germany, Sweden or Britain, where Eritreans last year topped the list of nationalities seeking asylum.
Yemane Gebremeskel, director of Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki’s office, argues it is only a “few individuals” skipping military service, who are therefore “not bona fide asylum seekers in the first place.”
“Migration is not more than a few hundred a year and does not compare in anyway with the reverse annual flow — for temporary stay or repatriation — of our citizens from the diaspora,” Yemane said in a recent interview on a government website.
Those who have returned vow their support for their native country and its redevelopment after years of war.
“People may leave to a new life elsewhere, but we fought so long for freedom that our hearts remain in Eritrea,” said Michael.
“This will always be home.”