In May 2019 Africanews described Independence Day carnival scenes in Eritrea ahead of the 28th anniversary of formal independence, including parades, camels, and public displays with mannequins of Abiy Ahmed and Isaias Afwerki.
The imagery celebrated the 2018 peace thaw between Addis Ababa and Asmara that had opened borders and flights for a time, and it showed how state spectacle tried to lock that diplomacy into popular festival culture.
Later years hardened again, so the carnival file is useful as a dated snapshot of the brief optimism period rather than as proof of lasting openness.
Kept as Horn geopolitics and culture archive, the Abiy–Afwerki carnival images mark how Eritrea performed the peace for cameras in May 2019.
Sources: Africanews