This project looks to emerging political practices around shared experiences of forced migration, refugeehood, and collective and nationalist memory for recent Eritrean refugees in Bologna, Italy. Since the mid-2000s, Eritrea’s young have left in numbers as high as two to seven thousand people monthly in response to the political and human rights crisis in the country. I examine the role of the Italian left in Bologna in its role as a partner to the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) during the nationalist war between Eritrea and Ethiopia from the 1970s until 1991 and how memories of this nationalist past affects intracommunal politics in response to the migration crisis. In particular, I focus on the experiences of recent Eritrean refugees in relation to the established Eritrean diaspora to examine national history, identity, and politics as it is experienced and practiced within this critical juncture. My work engages theories on forced migration, refugeeism, crisis and conflict, and collective memory to understand how communal bonds are reconstituted following experiences of protracted political violence within conditions of exile, historical amnesia, and coloniality.