Has Eritrea released prisoners from Adi Abeyto into the army and armed all government employees, as an EEPA report says?

What was claimed

On 12 October, the Europe External Programme with Africa (EEPA), a Brussels-based organisation whose situation reports are widely read by diplomats and researchers, published two claims about Eritrea A:

• that “Eritrean prisoners from several facilities, including Adi Abeyto prison, have been released and conscripted into military service”;
• that “all Eritrean government employees have reportedly been issued firearms”.

Both are attributed to “an internal source”, the second to “the same internal source” A. IDN-InDepthNews republished the report the same day B.

If true, the claims would describe a country emptying prisons into its army and arming its entire civil service, signs of a government preparing for full-scale war.

Where the claims come from

Both claims rest on one person. EEPA does not say who the source is, what “internal” means (inside Eritrea, inside the government, inside the army), or how the source would know. One source is given for two separate events: releases from several prisons and the arming of every government employee.

EEPA treats this differently from the item directly above it in the same report. That item, on Ethiopian troops crossing into Eritrea and taking Daba Sima, is labelled “according to unverified reports” A. We examined that claim in our fact check of the UMD Media report. The prison and firearms claims carry no such label, though nothing in the report suggests they were verified.

The report ends with a disclaimer: EEPA “does not take responsibility for the use of the information or impact thereof”, and “all information reported originates from third parties” A.

What we checked

We found no other report of either claim. We looked for news agency reports, human rights organisations’ statements and Eritrean diaspora media describing prisoners released from Adi Abeyto into the army, or firearms issued to all government employees, in October 2026. Every search led back to EEPA and its republication by IDN-InDepthNews B.

Adi Abeyto is a real prison, an army-run facility near Asmara that has been used to hold people detained in round-ups of suspected draft evaders D. Its existence does not show that anyone was released from it this month.

Our verdict

Misleading. The report presents the arming of “all Eritrean government employees” as a new development, on the word of one unnamed source, while leaving out that Eritrea has armed civilians, government employees among them, through a compulsory militia since 2012. That gives readers the impression of a sudden mobilisation that nothing in the report establishes. The claim that prisoners were released into the army rests on the same single source, and we found no one else reporting it. EEPA did not label either claim unverified, as it did the claim next to them, and its own footer disclaims responsibility for what it reports. If evidence emerges, we will review this fact check.