Detained students return to Asmara

Hundreds of university students who had been detained in a small town north of the capital for more than a month returned to Asmara on Thursday. As many as 700 students returned to Asmara in a fleet of buses from Wia town, where they had been detained in August following their criticism of the Eritrean leadership and Asmara University, Reuters reported on Thursday. More than 2,000 Asmara University students were detained for refusing to report for a summer work programme until their student union president, Semere Kesete, who was arrested on 31 July for making a speech critical of the government, was released or brought to court. "We are all very happy to be back," one student told Reuters. At least two of the students died of heatstroke while in detention in Wia, where temperatures regularly reach over the 40-degree mark. At the time, the government acknowledged that two students had died, but denied that they were being held in a detention camp.