ASMARA, Oct 5 - When Halima Mohammed was six, her parents dropped her off in the desert at Revolution School, where the children of Eritrean guerrilla fighters were raised while their parents fought for independence.

Wounded fighters taught grammar when they weren't carrying rifles. Mothers and fathers appeared only rarely before melting back into the mountains and deserts of a war that would rage for three decades before Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993.

Halima, 56, is now education minister of Eritrea, where that revolutionary struggle still hangs heavily over one of the most secluded and regimented societies on Earth.

She presides over a schooling system that binds the future of the country's children into the service of the state. All teenagers must undergo army training towards the end of high school before being assigned mandatory and often indefinitely long roles in the military or in national service, mainly low-paid civilian jobs like teaching and policing.

"All school graduates are getting at least a job to work, and they are getting their salary. And at the same time, they are serving the country," Halima told Reuters, which was granted rare access to the nation. "If you are going to have more freedom, first you have to have a country, you have to have national security, because we paid a lot for Eritrea."

Eritrea has long been isolated by the West, which views the East African country as among the most repressive in the world, while the government in Asmara has itself pursued a policy of political and economic seclusion. No elections have been held since the nation became a sovereign state in the 1990s. Independent media outlets were shut down in 2001. Hundreds of thousands of Eritreans have defied strict travel restrictions, which bar most working-age citizens from leaving the country, to abscond overseas.

This small country of fewer than 4 million people has nonetheless acquired new geopolitical significance this year, during the Iran war, owing to its 1,000 km coastline along the Red Sea shipping route between the Mediterranean and Asia. The route has proved a critical alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, which was the primary export route for Gulf energy shipments before it was effectively closed by the conflict. Attacks on Red Sea trading vessels by Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, which faces Eritrea across the route's southern chokepoint, have made Eritrean waters potentially the most secure transit corridor.

"Eritrea sits astride some of the world's hottest geographical real estate," said Murithi Mutiga, Africa program director at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank. "The war in the Gulf has highlighted the importance of the Red Sea as an alternative outlet for that region. It's no wonder outside powers are courting Asmara."

There have been signs of warming ties with the world: Last week, Washington removed its sanctions on Eritrea, which were imposed over the role of the country's military in the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia in 2020-22. The State Department said the Trump administration made the decision "to advance US regional interests." Reuters interviewed several senior government figures during a recent trip to Eritrea, as well as dozens of Eritreans at home and abroad, to piece together a picture of a society largely walled off from the modern world.

The officials pressed a consistent message: Eritrea is ready to engage and trade, they said. It is prepared to open up to investors keen to tap its gold, copper and potash. It is looking at reforming its school system to give young people more say over their destiny.

Yet beneath these aspirations lies a state shaped by its leaders' iron conviction that national survival depends on stringent internal security and military vigilance against Ethiopia, its larger neighbor.

In recent years, the countries have been at loggerheads over landlocked Ethiopia's demands that Eritrea grant it commercial and naval access to the Red Sea, particularly the port of Assab near their border. Ethiopia, which had access to the coastline for decades before Eritrea broke away, has cast maritime access as a matter of urgent national security. Meanwhile, Asmara has said it fears Addis Ababa will try to take Assab by force.

Getachew Reda, the Ethiopian premier's adviser on regional affairs, said Addis Ababa has never threatened to use force or violate Eritrea's sovereignty. He said that Eritrea poses a security threat because of its readiness to fund insurgencies within Ethiopia, an allegation denied by Asmara.

Getachew said access to the Red Sea is a matter of economic necessity for Ethiopia, a country of 130 million people, and that his government is willing to come to a peaceful arrangement with Eritrea such as a long-term lease deal on the use of ports.

Last week, the countries cut diplomatic ties, with Ethiopia expelling Eritrean diplomats and Asmara retaliating.

Eritrea has not always been isolated from the West; it enjoyed friendly relations with the US and several European nations in the years following its independence before diplomatic ties collapsed in 2001 when Asmara cracked down on political opponents and journalists.

THE CAPITAL ABOVE THE CLOUDS Asmara, Eritrea's highland capital, seems a city suspended in time.

Elderly men, many of them veterans with wheelchairs or crutches, linger over macchiatos at dusk beneath fading Italian signs at Bar Vittoria and Bar America, legacies of the Italian colonial rule that preceded Ethiopian control.

Tightly controlled internet access is sparse and slow. Few people bother staring at phones. Young people drink unlabeled bottles of beer from the state-owned factory. Almost no cars can be seen on the streets amid severe government fuel rationing, save a few battered taxis that have survived in an economy ground down by decades of Western sanctions.

Even as ministers spoke of reform and engagement, many ordinary Eritreans remained reluctant to discuss politics.

Conversations often end the same way. A glance over the shoulder. A lowered voice. A polite smile. "It's better not to," several people said when questions turned to national service or political freedoms. Others only agreed to speak if they weren't identified.

Walking through a residential district of Asmara, the sound of applause drifted out from an old cinema. An information session for Sawa was underway.

Little epitomizes the tensions tearing at the fabric of the nation more than Sawa, a remote military camp in the desert near the border with Sudan. This is where teenagers must go to complete their final year of secondary school and undergo military training.

In the cinema, rows of teenagers due to leave home for Sawa faced a stage where a young woman clicked through a PowerPoint presentation filled with photos of students in camouflage uniforms, marching in formation and studying in classrooms.

The presenter, 24-year-old Luna Ermias, wore jeans, sunglasses pushed onto her head and braces that flashed when she smiled. She spoke passionately.

"I was there in 2019," she told Reuters afterwards. "It teaches you to rely on yourself. You manage your money, your time. You meet people from every part of Eritrea." ESCAPING ACROSS A BURNING DESERT Many don't share her enthusiasm.

Muse said he was 17 when he decided he would rather run than report to Sawa. He felt sure if he stayed, his life would never be his own.

He packed almost nothing. He slipped away from home under the cover of darkness, hoping to cross the border with Ethiopia before the authorities caught him. He didn't make it.

Muse said he spent the next six months in prison. When he was released, he added, he wasn't sent home. He was instead deployed in the military to Assab, the Red Sea port. He escaped again. This time he succeeded.

He crossed the blistering Danakil desert into Ethiopia before reaching another East African country, where Reuters interviewed him. The journey cost him thousands of dollars paid to smugglers, money borrowed from relatives already living abroad.

Reuters reviewed Muse's asylum documents and spoke to three family members who corroborated his story. The news agency couldn't independently verify all elements of the account given by the teenager, who asked for his full name and location to be withheld.

His story isn't unique. According to the United Nations, more than 679,000 Eritreans are living as refugees or asylum seekers abroad, a significant chunk of the nation's small population. Human Rights Watch and many other rights groups say the prospect of prolonged compulsory service has driven generations of young people to flee, often risking perilous journeys across the Sahara and Mediterranean.

The Eritrean government did not comment on the details of Muse's account, though said asylum seekers normally fabricate claims to be granted asylum.

The government disputed the UN figures, saying a significant portion of those classed as refugees are actually from neighboring countries who posed as Eritreans to secure fast-tracked asylum and social benefits. It said Eritrean youths were not primarily driven away by national service but rather drawn abroad by external factors including economic incentives, family reunifications and generous asylum policies in the West.

Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Britain and the US are among the most popular Western destinations for Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers, according to the UN. DREAMING OF MERCEDES-BENZ Not everyone who wants to leave manages to do so.

In Asmara, Reuters met a mechanical engineer who was among Sawa students to achieve top grades and was therefore allowed to attend university. He spoke avidly about German engineering. He'd dreamed of working for Mercedes-Benz one day. Instead, he was assigned to a government job as an auto mechanic.

"You don't study what you want," he said. "Even if you finish university, you often don't work in your field." At around 2,300 Nakfa ($153) a month, he said, his salary barely covers basic necessities. Saving enough to pay smugglers or finance a life abroad felt impossible.

Officials in Asmara maintained that Western governments and rights groups have long misrepresented Eritrea's national service program by overlooking the security pressures the country faces from Ethiopia, with which it shares one of Africa's most turbulent relationships.

Eritrea emerged from the 30-year independence war, which killed tens of thousands on both sides, only to fight another devastating border conflict with its neighbor seven years later. Persistent regional violence has further cemented a sense of permanent mobilization inside the young state.

Halima, the girl left in the desert a lifetime ago, now sits behind a polished wooden desk in the Ministry of Education in Asmara, housed in the striking red Casa del Fascio, built during colonial rule as the Eritrean headquarters of Italy's National Fascist Party.

With four children of her own, she doesn't dismiss the frustrations of young Eritreans. Her ultimate goal, she says, is to replace compulsory national service with vocational colleges and technical schools. But all plans are subordinate to national security.

"First we have to think about Eritrea. We have to protect it," she said. "As a mother, first I have to think about Eritrea." REUTERS