"Now we can die like men": an examination of women and war in Eritrea

War is integral to shared national narratives of suffering as well as victory and liberation. In this article I examine the (re)creation of the Eritrean state and the internal gender differentiation that occurs within this context. Eritrea is significant since women comprised such a large proportion of the combat fighters in the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) during the first struggle against Ethiopia. In the second border conflict with Ethiopia from 1997–2000 women continued to remain pivotal to the compulsory national military service program (NSP). This article, therefore examines why women joined the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front during the thirty year war and why women subsequently participated in the post-liberation NSP programme and the Ethio-Eritrean border conflict. This debate therefore draws out another issue as well: how and why Eritrean women have avoided these war zones during conflict.