Fascinating look into a country few visit. It really does appear to have slowly frozen in time as a mid-sized Italian town; both in terms of the buildings and in the lack of bustle. I would visit, but as someone with an Ethiopian background I have rather... strong feelings about it and its government that would probably make travel inadvisable.

That said, a look at Addis Ababa makes one wonder if being frozen in time is necessarily a bad thing. The quality of construction there is not as awful as it used to be, but it's still pretty sub-par, and I'd hate to see Asmara's unique cityscape marred by shoddy concrete and cheap glass. I remember hearing stuff about tourist developments on the coast, but those look pretty thin on the ground. Hope the Palace in Massawa is eventually restored!

In this regard the pictures are deceiving. Eritrea is a one party-state, and no national elections-- not even show elections-- have been held since independence. Reporters Without Borders lists Eritrea as having the least free press in the world-- even below North Korea. Starting in their teens, Eritreans are drafted for national service, in which they perform public works for nominal pay, and which can last virtually indefinitely until the age of 50. Certain ethnic groups deemed disloyal to the state have been subject to ethnic cleansing, while religious persecution is near-universal-- even the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church has been under house arrest for over a decade. While some asylum-seekers' claims may be questionable, Eritreans certainly are not amongst their number. I suppose any more detail would be for OMNI-- which I've never seen, anyway!