Eritreans residing in the metropolitan city of Seattle on Saturday held candlelight vigils in memory of their native nationals who lost their lives at the hands of human and organ traffickers in the Sahara desert and Sinai Peninsula. The memorial service was held across the PFDJ office which is registered and operates under the disguise of a community center and was hosting a quasi-clandestine meeting with Dr. GhedewonAsmerom’s chairmanship.

Even though the candlelight vigils had been planned to coordinate with the international initiative that has been taken by Eritreans across the US to come out on the day and  remember the victims, DrGhedewon’s continuous mockery on the suffering of the Eritrean youth and his inciting activities of the diaspora youth had given them a reasonto demonstrate as well.

Braving the cold and drizzly afternoon weather, the demonstrators used slogans, music and speeches to express their resentments to the dictatorial regime they allege as the root cause of the Eritrean misery.  The demonstrators alleged that Dr. Ghedewon and few others they named, using their American citizenship, are serving as accessories and proxies to enable the Eritrean regime go around the  movement restrictions put by the State Department on its diplomats so as to raise funds and incite the youth.

According to witnesses who attended the first separate meeting Dr. Ghedewon held for young diaspora Eritreans, he lectured them mainly on how Ethiopia, the West and Djibouti are the natural and mortal enemies of Eritrea and its independence. IssiasFikre, one of the attendees, said that the meeting had no substance except a repeat of the usual paranoia of the regime which seems unabatedly increasing. MussieKidane, another attendee, said that the professor and his handlers hurriedly closed the meeting after the youth started to challenge him on why the government resolve its internal problem instead of waging against the whole world.