- Thirty nine year old Kiros Shiferaw was following his daily routine at Assab when things began to change for him after the outbreak of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. According to Kiros, things have already started to look gloomy with the introduction of the new Eritrean currency (Naqfa) as a means of exchange.

He can ill-afford to buy his daily ration. Prices have started to soar up in Assab as all the supplies to this town coming from Ethiopia have stopped because of Eritrea's refusal to trade with Ethiopia through the medium of hard currency.

Like many others Kiros came from the highlands of Ethiopia in search of work. He came to Assab around 1995 and was working as a shoe peddler. He lost his daily work as a result of the war. He was instead subjected to forced labour by the Eritrean authorities. Kiros was surrounded by the Eritrean police on the pretext that he had ridiculed the Eritrean Government and torn down the Eritrean Naqfa. Like the rest of his compatriots he was put in prison at Harsele near a salt extraction site. There he was forced to commute daily between his prison and the salt quarry where he was put on an intense forced labour under the watchful eyes of the soldiers with no pay for Eritrean Government owned enterprises. As a payment for his work he received a local bread of maize "injera" and Sauce "watt" once a day.

It was on the morning of July 25, 1998 that Kiros witnessed a dreadful sight near his place of work which he couldn't shed off until this day. A group of Ethiopians in the encampment near the salt quarry had refused to go to work and demanded to be repatriated to their homeland. The Eritrean soldiers who were angered by their refusal retaliated by beating and pushing them around to intimidate them into obedience. Some of course, went to their daily slavery while others continued with their resistance. Kiros was among the former workers.

In order to give a lesson to the entire labour force, the Eritreans soldiers, forced the disobedient workers into a small, metal cargo container lying dusty on the ground near the salt quarry, beating and intimidating them at gun point. This took place at about noon when the scortching sun was at its highest in the Red Sea shore of Assab, one of the hottest places on earth. About fifty persons were packed into the small metal containers with no ventilation. They were left locked to languish at 450 C heat for hours on end. There was no one to attend to their cries and agony. Many of them were, old sick and exhausted from days of hardwork and hunger.

When Kiros's groups returned from their daily work towards the end of the day, they were made to see and take a lesson from the worst of what they had feared and expected. Dead bodies covered with white sheets of cloth were lying before their bare eyes, apparently dead from intense asphyxiation inside the container. One of the soldiers pointing his finger at the dead corpses made a warning to everyone there saying "unless you behave well and carry out your tasks diligently you will have the same fate."

After this warning Kiros decided to take his last chance to escape. The next day he broke through the fence around the salt field and together with his friend AbdulKadir managed to escape to his freedom en route Djibouti on foot. The guard who later saw him running shot at random. A stray bullet caught Kiros at his left leg where he sustained a slight enjury.