GENEVA, June 19, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Government critics in Eritrea face prison camps, forced labour and other rights violations, and the situation is worsening, the UN special rapporteur on the country warned Friday, raising the spectre of ongoing crimes against humanity.

Presenting a bleak report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker said he had determined that systematic and widespread abuses were taking place with impunity in Eritrea.

From April 2025 to April 2026 -- the period covered by the report -- the human rights situation continued to deteriorate, "and remains dire and critical", he said.

"There remain reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity continue in Eritrea," Babiker said.

"The ongoing systematic and widespread enforced disappearance and prolonged incommunicado detention without charge or trial, torture, and the persecution of political opponents, journalists and members of religious communities remain central features of governance in Eritrea," he added.

The Horn of Africa country has been ruled with an iron fist since independence from Ethiopia in 1993 by 80-year-old Isaias Afwerki, and remains among the most closed-off in the world.

Dissenting voices in Eritrea can disappear into prison camps, and civilians face military conscription or forced labour, which the UN says amounts to slavery.

Babiker said Eritrea's authorities were also increasingly trying to "silence, intimidate or harm" Eritreans abroad.

Eritrea ranks last out of 180 countries in the Press Freedom Index issued by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and basic rights are "systematically suppressed", Babiker said.

The Human Rights Council created the Eritrea special rapporteur post in 2012 to monitor the situation in the country of 3.5 million people.

The appointed expert is independent and unpaid and does not speak for the United Nations itself.

It was the final report from Babiker, who started the post in 2020.

The mandate expires next month unless the council decides to extend it and appoint a new special rapporteur during its current session, which runs until July 7.

"Regrettably, the core human rights issues that prompted the creation of this mandate 14 years ago remain mostly unresolved," Babiker said, urging countries to retain the post.