ERITREA: Inside Africa's North Korea | 4K Documentary

This looks like a city in southern Europe. Palm-lined boulevards. Cafés on every corner. Cinemas with glowing art deco facades. A gas station shaped like an airplane. But this is Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, in the Horn of Africa, and it sits inside one of the most closed-off countries on Earth. To understand how a city this beautiful ended up inside a country this sealed... you first have to understand one fact. Eritrea has never held a national election. Not once since it became independent in nineteen ninety-three. And the same man has led it the entire time. But if a country can go more than thirty years without an election... what does that do to the people living inside it? Independent journalism is banned here, and in recent years Eritrea has ranked dead last in the world for press freedom, below even North Korea. And here's the part that stops people cold. Nobody actually knows how many people live in this country. Eritrea has never carried out an official census. Estimates range from three and a half million to more than six million. This is Eritrea. The country many call Africa's North Korea. And by the end of this video, you'll understand why it earned that name... and why the full story is far more complicated than a label.