Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in Eritrea on Thursday for a one-day surprise visit, the government of this closed and authoritarian country in the Horn of Africa said, which did not condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, AFP reports.

This visit was not included in the program of the current African tour of the head of Russian diplomacy, the second in six months on the continent, during which he visited South Africa, Eswatini and Angola.

Lavrov spoke with President Isaias Afeworki, who has ruled one of the world’s most closed countries with an iron fist since its independence from Ethiopia in 1993.

“Discussions focused on the dynamics of the war in Ukraine and strengthening bilateral relations in the fields of energy, mining, information technology, education and health care,” Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel wrote on Twitter.

Eritrea is one of five countries that voted against the UN resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, along with Russia, Belarus, Syria and North Korea.

His army is also accused of numerous atrocities against civilians in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where it supported the Ethiopian army against Tigray rebels in a conflict that claimed many lives between November 2020 and November 2022. Troops in the region since the start of the war began withdrawing late last week, the US and the Ethiopian government announced

(source: Agerpres)