Date: Thursday, 14 August 2025
Response to the Sentry Report (PDF)
Executive Summary
The National Council of Eritrean Americans categorically rejects The Sentry’s June 2025 report entitled “Power and Plunder: The Eritrean Defense Forces Intervention in Tigray.”
This report is deeply flawed, politically motivated, and built upon recycled accusations and unsubstantiated claims masquerading as human rights advocacy. Lacking credible evidence, a transparent methodology, or impartial investigation, the report fails to meet even the most basic standards of objectivity and neutrality expected of serious investigative research. Its sensational allegations are largely based on anonymous testimonies, recycled propaganda, and partisan sources. It completely disregards Eritrea’s established legal, ethical, and operational standards that underpin its defense doctrine and military conduct.
This official response refutes the report’s central claims through detailed factual analysis, exposing its methodological weaknesses, deliberate omissions, and politically skewed framing. It highlights Eritrea’s lawful right to self-defense in response to overt aggression and exposes The Sentry’s appalling narrative to whitewash the origins and dynamics of TPLF’s premeditated war of choice that also targeted Eritrea as part and parcel of its wider objective.
The report further distorts Eritrea’s proven track record of regional peace building efforts in Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia. It falsely portrays a nation grounded in the principles of non-interference and respect for sovereignty as a “destabilizing actor” – a narrative that flies in the face of objective facts and stems solely from malicious political bias.
At a time when many political forces in the region as well as the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia, including those in Tigray, are working to rebuild trust through grassroots reconciliation and social healing, the publication of such a report is both cynical and dangerous. It risks undermining fragile peace efforts underway, emboldening spoilers, and derailing genuine progress toward healing and stability.
By ignoring Ethiopia’s unfortunate and open threats in the past two years to violate Eritrean sovereignty under the guise of gaining “sovereign access to the Red Sea,” and by failing to scrutinize internal gold smuggling scandals acknowledged by both the Ethiopian Federal Government authorities and TPLF officials, The Sentry further exposes its partisan agenda. Page 2 of 17
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF ERITREAN AMERICANS
We call on international partners, policy institutions, and responsible media organizations to reject such politicized and one-sided narratives. Instead, we urge them to uphold truth, evidence, and balance as the pillars of meaningful dialogue and diplomacy.
Eritrea remains fully committed to regional stability, lawful conduct, and cooperation grounded in mutual respect and sovereignty. Guided by these principles, Eritrea unequivocally challenges the distortions contained in The Sentry’s report and reaffirms its readiness to engage constructively with all actors who value peace, truth, and a stable Horn of Africa.
