Ref.No. RSADO-173/2026

OPEN LETTER

To: The United States Department of State
       The United States Department of the Treasury – Office of Foreign Assets Control   

       H.E. Mr. Massad Boulos, Senior Advisor to the President of the United States for Africa

       The United States Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

         

Subject: Red Sea Democratic Organization Expresses Serious Concern over the Expiration of Executive Order 14046 and Calls for Rights-Based and Conditional Recalibration with Eritrea

The Red Sea Afar Democratic Organization (RSADO) expresses its serious concern regarding the recent expiration of the national emergency declared under Executive Order 14046 of September 17, 2021, “Imposing Sanctions on Certain Persons with Respect to the Humanitarian and Human Rights Crisis,” and the resulting removal of Eritrea-related designations from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s sanctions list.

On 18 September 2026, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that the national emergency declared under E.O. 14046 had expired and that, following its expiration, OFAC had removed from the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List persons and entities designated pursuant to the Executive Order. These included the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), the Eritrean Defense Forces, the Red Sea Trading Corporation and Hidri Trust, as well as senior Eritrean officials.

RSADO recognizes OFAC’s ongoing effort to support the Eritrean people and counter the Eritrea’s regime destabilizing acts through targeted sanctions, including the E.O. 14046. However, the expiration of the Executive Order should not be interpreted as evidence that the human-rights concerns associated with the Eritrean authorities have been resolved. Indeed, international human-rights reporting continues to document serious concerns in Eritrea, including indefinite national service and forced labour, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, restrictions on freedom of expression and religion, and the absence of meaningful accountability.

RSADO is particularly concerned that the recalibration of U.S. policy toward Eritrea could proceed without adequate consideration of the rights and security of Eritrean citizens and, in particular, the Red Sea Afar people of the Dankalia region. For generations, Red Sea Afar communities have depended upon their traditional lands, coastal waters, fishing, pastoralism and cross-border economic and social networks. Any international policy toward Eritrea should therefore take into account the specific vulnerabilities and legitimate rights of these communities.
The Organization urges the United States Government not to allow strategic considerations relating to the Red Sea to overshadow the fundamental rights of the communities living along its shores.

RSADO is also concerned that the removal of sanctions on Eritrean state and ruling-party entities could increase the financial and operational space available to the Eritrean authorities, particularly if broader economic and security engagement follows without appropriate safeguards.
This concern is especially serious with respect to the Eritrean Defense Forces and other state-controlled structures.

The Organization is concerned that expanded access to financial resources, commercial networks and international transactions could, in the absence of appropriate safeguards, contribute to the strengthening of the security and military apparatus used to suppress Eritrean citizens and vulnerable communities, including the Red Sea Afar population in Dankalia.

RSADO therefore urges the United States Government to ensure that any future engagement does not inadvertently facilitate the acquisition of military equipment, weapons or other capabilities that could be used against the Eritrean population or Red Sea Afar communities.

The purpose of sanctions should not be to punish the Eritrean people. Rather, sanctions and other targeted measures should be calibrated to ensure that those responsible for repression do not gain additional capacity to perpetrate human-rights violations.

RSADO does not oppose diplomatic engagement between the United States and Eritrea. The Organization recognizes the potential importance of diplomatic dialogue in promoting regional peace, stability and cooperation. However, any recalibration, normalization or expansion of U.S.–Eritrea relations should be gradual, conditional, transparent and linked to measurable human-rights and accountability benchmarks.

In particular, RSADO calls upon the United States Government to make meaningful progress in the following areas an important component of future engagement:

  • respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms of Eritrean citizens;
  • an end to indefinite national service and associated forced-labour practices;
  • release or due-process guarantees for persons arbitrarily detained;
  • clarification of the fate and whereabouts of forcibly disappeared persons;
  • meaningful access for independent international human-rights monitoring mechanisms;
  • accountability for serious violations of international human-rights and humanitarian law;
  • protection of the rights and traditional livelihoods of the Red Sea Afar people of Dankalia;
  • protection of Afar access to traditional lands, coastal waters, fishing grounds and pastoral livelihoods;
  • meaningful participation of affected communities in decisions concerning their ancestral territories and natural resources;
  • humanitarian access to vulnerable communities in the Red Sea coastal areas; and
    credible safeguards preventing expanded international economic or security engagement from contributing to repression.

RSADO respectfully urges the U.S. Department of State, the Department of the Treasury and OFAC to distinguish between engagement with the Eritrean people and the strengthening of institutions responsible for repression.

The United States has previously stated that its sanctions measures concerning Eritrea were directed at actors responsible for prolonging conflict and serious abuses rather than at the Eritrean population. That principle should remain central to the current recalibration.

The removal of designations pursuant to the expiration of E.O. 14046 should therefore not result in the abandonment of targeted accountability measures under other available U.S. legal authorities where credible evidence of serious human-rights abuses exists.

RSADO respectfully calls upon:

  • The U.S. Department of State to ensure that diplomatic normalization with Eritrea remains firmly connected to human-rights and accountability benchmarks.
  • The U.S. Department of the Treasury and OFAC to carefully monitor the consequences of the removal of the E.O. 14046 designations and to use appropriate authorities where individuals or entities are credibly implicated in serious human-rights abuses.
  • The U.S. Special Presidential Envoy/Senior Advisor for Africa, H.E. Massad Boulos, to ensure that the emerging U.S. engagement with Eritrea takes into account the concerns of Eritrean civil society, opposition communities and, particularly, the Red Sea Afar people of Dankalia.
  • The U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa to maintain engagement with affected communities and civil-society representatives and to ensure that the voices of marginalized communities are incorporated into the United States’ evolving policy toward Eritrea and the wider Red Sea region.

RSADO believes that peace and strategic stability in the Red Sea cannot be built at the expense of the fundamental rights and security of the people who inhabit its shores. The Organization therefore welcomes diplomatic engagement as a means of addressing regional tensions, but emphasizes that engagement without conditions, accountability and human-rights safeguards risks strengthening the very structures that have contributed to repression and insecurity.

The recalibration of relations with Eritrea should therefore be conditional, gradual and reversible, with clear benchmarks, periodic review and appropriate consequences where those benchmarks are not met.

The United States should ensure that the opening of new diplomatic and economic space does not inadvertently provide the Eritrean authorities with greater resources or capabilities to suppress their own citizens or the Red Sea Afar people of Dankalia.

Red Sea Afar Democratic Organization (RSADO)

September 22, 2026