Eritrea document photos online

For six weeks in late 2015, the Bank of Eritrea pulled off one of Africa's boldest monetary moves: it recalled every single nakfa banknote and swapped them for a redesigned series. The stated target was not inflation but human traffickers and smugglers, who had been hoarding cash to ferry would-be migrants toward Europe. On 1 January 2016 the old notes simply stopped being legal tender, instantly turning stockpiles stashed abroad into worthless paper. Few countries have ever weaponised a currency redesign quite so deliberately against organised crime, and it tells you a lot about how seriously Eritrea guards its money and its borders.

• Currency Eritrea's currency, the nakfa, is named after the mountain town of Nakfa, captured by liberation fighters in 1977 and never given back, making it one of the few currencies named after a battlefield.
• Banknotes The nakfa notes were designed by African-American artist Clarence Holbert and deliberately depict ordinary people from each of Eritrea's nine ethnic groups rather than presidents or generals.
• Money & crime In a six-week blitz ending 31 December 2015, Eritrea replaced all its banknotes specifically to ruin cash hoards held by people-smugglers, voiding any old notes held outside the country.
• Passport power As of 2026 the Eritrean passport ranks 94th on the Henley Passport Index with visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to just 38 destinations, among the weaker travel documents in the world.
• Diaspora tax Eritrea levies a 2% 'recovery and rehabilitation' tax on citizens living abroad, and consulates can refuse to renew your passport until you prove you have paid it, a practice the UN condemned in Resolution 2023 (2011).
• Independence Eritrea is one of Africa's youngest states: a UN-monitored 1993 referendum returned 99.83% in favour of independence, and the country became the United Nations' 182nd member just weeks later.
• Fixed rate The nakfa is pegged by decree at 15 to the US dollar, a rate the government has held for years even as street-market values drift far above the official line.
• Capital Asmara, the capital, holds hundreds of 1930s Art Deco and Modernist buildings built by Italian colonists, earning the whole city UNESCO World Heritage status in 2017 as 'Africa's Modernist City'.
• Subdivision One nakfa divides into 100 cents, with the coins struck in nickel-clad steel, a small detail of a currency that only entered circulation in 1997 after replacing the Ethiopian birr at par.