Visit the new AsenaTv Website

https://asenatv.com

Forgotten: The stolen people of the Sinai

Thousands of poor migrants from across Africa are being kidnapped by Bedouin gangs Refugees from sub-Saharan Africa are being kidnapped, tortured and ransomed for thousands of dollars in the Egyptian Sinai in what human rights activists

Thousands of poor migrants from across Africa are being kidnapped by Bedouin gangs

Refugees from sub-Saharan Africa are being kidnapped, tortured and ransomed for thousands of dollars in the Egyptian Sinai in what human rights activists say is the world’s forgotten hostage crisis. Over the past year, thousands of desperate migrants from Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia have been kidnapped by Bedouin tribesmen who are taking advantage of continuing instability in Egypt to ramp up their lucrative trade.

Click Here to view ‘Refugees on the move’ graphic

Migrants have reported being rounded up by gang members and held in specially constructed jails where they are frequently tortured until relatives in Europe or Africa come up with thousands of dollars.

Testimony compiled by human rights groups reveals that torture with electric cables and molten plastic is routinely used against victims as they make desperate calls home to plead for cash. Many kidnap victims claim to have been raped by their abductors, and there are reports that captives who have been unable to raise funds have had organs removed for sale on the black market.

Critics have accused the international community of standing idle in the midst of a kidnapping scandal that has drawn little attention compared with Somali piracy, whose victims are often white employees of multinational corporations rather than poor Africans.

Father Mussie Zerai, an Eritrean priest based in Rome, receives regular calls to his Vatican office from the families of kidnapped migrants as they try to liaise with loved ones or kidnappers. “There are no real efforts being made to save these people,” he told The Independent. “The inertia of the [international community] is a godsend for criminals who get rich. The millionaire business around this trafficking is forcing hundreds of families into debt for amounts that they will pay for decades, in order to save the lives of their son, daughter or husband. Many sell everything, or end up in the hands of usurers”.

Most of the sub-Saharan migrants making their way to the Sinai desert are from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan – three impoverished African nations which have a history of persecuting political opponents and ethnic minorities. Most of those fleeing are hoping to reach Europe, where there are already sizeable populations from their countries.

Before the turmoil created by the Arab Spring, many migrants trekked through the Sahara to reach Libya, Algeria and Morocco in the hopes of finding work or catching a boat across the Mediterranean. Most now have no choice but to enter Europe via the Sinai and Israel, forcing them into the hands of Bedouin tribesmen who have long engaged in smuggling arms, drugs and people after years of chronic under-investment and prejudice from central government in Cairo.

Dr Khataza Ghondwe, an expert on sub-Saharan Africa working for the non-governmental organisation Christian Solidarity Worldwide, says the plight of kidnapped refugees has been ignored for too long. “The Sinai has been a pretty lawless place for years and [ousted President Hosni] Mubarak made no effort to halt the abuse of refugees by tribes there,” she said. “But since the revolution things have got even worse. Their plight has slipped off the radar entirely.”

She thinks people within Eritrea, and not just the Bedouin, could be benefiting from the smuggling routes. “I was in Kenya earlier last year speaking to an Eritrean man,” she said. “As we were talking, he got a call from his brother who was being held in the Sinai and asked for him to send money as soon as possible. The bank details he gave were for a branch in Asmara [the capital of Eritrea], not Egypt.”

According to a recent Israeli government report, an estimated 11,763 people were smuggled into Israel through the Egyptian border in 2010. Last week, the Knesset passed new legislation making it easier for the authorities to speed up deportations, leading to an outcry from human rights groups.

Doctors working for Physicians for Human Rights Israel, a charity which examines migrants on arrival, conducted interviews with 800 refugees, with 78 per cent reporting that they had been kidnapped, tortured or held for ransom at some point during their journey through the Sinai. A separate survey by the Hotline for Migrant Workers, based in Tel Aviv, found that 50 per cent of migrants had reported being raped in the Sinai, including many men.

Egypt’s ability to police the Sinai has been historically hindered by its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which limits the number of troops Cairo is allowed to place on the country’s eastern flank. After a successful attempt by Islamist suicide bombers to infiltrate the Sinai border last August, Israel has allowed the Egyptians to increase troop numbers, but little of the extra resources have been put into tackling the human trafficking networks.

The migrants have given testimonies with detailed descriptions of where they were held. One group operating out of the Mansoura area is known to be run by a man called Abu Musa and his brothers Ali Hamed and Salim. They use two distinctive red houses with Chinese pagodas outside their gates to imprison their captives. The towns of Rafah, Mansoura and Al-Jorra are also known to contain purpose-built prisons for hostages. Despite the details provided, however, authorities are taking little action.

The most recent telephone call received by Father Zerai was last Thursday, when a woman said she was part of a group of 20 who had been taken captive, including six children. “The woman who called for help talks about continuous mistreatment, starvation and violence,” he said. The kidnappers reportedly demanded $30,000 for each captive and threatened to remove organs from those who could not pay.

“The situation is getting worse and worse,” added Father Zerai. “Something must be done.”

Tortured in the desert: Smugglers’ victims

TLS: A 19-year-old Eritrean woman

When I was still in Sudan, I agreed to pay the smugglers $2,500 to transfer me to Israel. When I arrived in Sinai, the smuggler sold me, along with a group of other people, to another smuggler named Abdullah. Abdullah demanded an additional $10,000 from me. I had no way to raise that sum of money. Abdullah raped me for five days and two other smugglers raped me as well. As a result of all these rapes, I got pregnant. Only after eight months was my father able to send the smugglers $5,000; they released me and allowed me to cross the border to Israel. I must have an abortion. My husband should not know what happened to me in the desert.

MN: A 35-year-old Sudanese man

The smugglers asked whether we knew anyone in Israel or Europe and asked for our relatives’ phone numbers. They would call our relatives and then bring a stick and beat us so that we could be heard shouting and crying. They told our relatives that if the money arrived that day, we’d be in Israel the following day. Sometimes they asked for $2,500 and sometimes for an additional $3,000. The more someone cried when they were beaten, the more money their relatives would send.

AIS: A 21-year-old Eritrean woman

So that we would convince our relatives to send money, the smugglers beat our shins with a stick. They also burned our arms and legs with a plastic stick with hot metal at the end. I still have wounds and scars from the beatings and the burns. I was a virgin when I arrived in the desert. During the first few times that I was raped I cried and resisted, but that didn’t help. They wouldn’t leave me alone. After that I stopped resisting. Only when $2,800 arrived did the smugglers unchain me. They transferred me to someone named Ibrahim and he transferred me and 30 other people to the Israeli border.

Source:The Independent

aseye.asena@gmail.com

Review overview
11 COMMENTS
  • SINGAPO-ERITREAN January 19, 2012

    I want us to remmember a 16 year old Eritrean girl being GANG – RAPED ,BY LIBYA´S PRISON GUARDS, IT HAPPENED WHEN GHADAFFI WAS A LEADER . THE ISSUE IS NOT GHADAFFI, OR EVEN HATING PFDJ . I WANT US TO USE IT AS AWAKENNING FACTOR ,AND DO SOME THING. I WANT YOU TO PICTURE ,YOUR DAUGHTER,SISTER,NIECE.
    For heaven´s sake ,she was under age . I want you to cry like i cried .then stop crying & think of doing something. IS´NT THAT UNDER AGE GIRL ,MORE PRESCIOUS THAN OUR PITY QUARREL ???

    • GOOD MAN January 19, 2012

      Remarkable, I share your goodness. we are going to relax after the devil relinquish power.

    • Selomon January 20, 2012

      Hade Libi, hade hzbi – says DIA ! If we are hade hzbi, then the citizens in Eritrea (including DIA) have and fell the lihi (heart) and sufferings our victims in Sinai have.
      We all victim citizens hope for a sudden cancer for the devil in Asmara

      Yerhwo fetari !

  • SINGAPO-ERITREAN January 19, 2012

    QUOTE…….last year speaking to an Eritrean man,” she said. “As we were talking, he got a call from his brother who was being held in the Sinai and asked for him to send money as soon as possible. The bank details he gave were for a branch in Asmara [the capital of Eritrea], not Egypt.”…………………REMEMBER MY UNSOPHISTICATED POEM ,,,in tigrigna….. LONG BEFORE THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED ?”ሲናይ ከይደ ኣጣል ክገዝእ”(ብዛዕባ እቶም ኣብ ሲናይ ተጨውዮም ገንዘብ ዝሕተቱ)
    Check ጥራይ ጽሓፈልና ባንክ ዘለልዮ
    ናብ ህግደፍ ኢልካ,ኣስመራ ይሽረፍዩ……I am not trying to brag about the obvious ,that I am brilliant & could foresee……every body knows that. BUT IS THIS THE “GOVT.” WE WANT OUR ´PEOPLE TO BE RULED BY ??A GOVT. THAT SELLS ERITREWANS´BODY PARTS !!!

    • dan January 19, 2012

      Singashit-tigrian

      How pathetic, insensitive, low level animal are you? Your writing stinks like sewer and you think you have a fraction of human like decency to try to communicate to other humans. If the man said that he reported it to the Eritrean authorities then it is something but to infer from the use of Eritrean branch to holding Eritrea government responsible is the measure of the donqoro mentality that makes you keep coming back here. All the black market money transfers make use of local banks one way or the other, if they are caught the risk 2 million nakfa and 5 year jail time. Please take your shit to wherever you come from and go take your stinking shit crap to your fagniatura you crawled out of.

    • Abnet Tesfai January 19, 2012

      SINGAPO-ERITREAN
      thank you for sharing you precious information.
      i would like to give you my advice that please keep all information you have like the the account number of the bank the lady was obliged to depose her money and other related data. because there is no any crime which will remain out of the reach of the people. and it will be easy to trace the crime makers in the process and the lady may get her money back after the justice starts to prevail in our country.
      “TIME IS THE GREATEST HEALER OF ALL WOUNDS.”

      • dan January 19, 2012

        what a silly arse does that make you?????kkkkk….god save us from butanas like you. for your info, sinashit tigrayan was quoting the article above!!!! the article said the woman was speaking to a man when the man’s phone rang…sooo this makes the issue about the man and his brother!! neither singashit tigrayan or the woman have anything to do with it. By the way singashit tigrayan lives in the US on his death bed from long term illness. He wants to stir shit for us before departing to hell, where he will be roasted like kaffa coffee beans till eternity…

        • Kibrom T. January 20, 2012

          dan

          1. Calma!
          2. “neither nor…” among others.
          3. Shut your trap.

    • Selomon January 20, 2012

      I share your opinion SINGAPO!
      “… every body knows that. BUT IS THIS THE “GOVT.” WE WANT OUR ´PEOPLE TO BE RULED BY ??A GOVT. THAT SELLS ERITREWANS´BODY PARTS !!! …”

      In the meantime every Eritrean knows that the DIA-gov is selling ERITREWANS´BODY PARTS, direct and indirect – another Guantanamo in Sinai. The whole world is onvinced and the facts speak for themselves!

  • Cambo January 20, 2012

    My only question is that why is this evil crime happening to Eritreans in the Arab World only?
    Why is this not happening to Eritreans in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda, Angola or South Africa…?
    Why is this evil taking place in the Arab world — Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia … Yemen — to Eritreans? Why? why!

  • Cambo January 20, 2012

    Megistu H. Mariam must be scratching is his head, wondering who is a real slave? No one Ethiopian or Eritrean was enslaved by force during Mengistu’s rule.
    Mengistu was power hungry and selfish but was he afraid of some Arab Bedeunes?
    To listen how worthless it has become to be Eritrean, please listen Wednesday, Jan 18-19, 2012 Radio Erena’s broadcast by Meron of ICER interviewing recently enslaved 14 Eritreans in the hands of the evil mafia Egyptian Bedeuines? Rashaida collaborators are enslaving farm workers in the border. These young Eritreans were ambushed and kidnapped by the Sudanese police and Sudanese civilians right at the border and sold right away to Arab Rashaidas outside of Kesella.
    The worthless Higdef regime and the good for nothing Eritrean opposition is doing nothing to defend poor enslaved Eritreans in Eritrea and around Kesela, let alone to defend or liberate Eritreans.
    This is what you call Eritrea or liberation — to be Arab Rashaida slaves.
    Imagine, what Mengistu Hailemariam would have done. Send his Mig 21, 23 and bomb the Arab Rashaidas villages but the Arab slave Issaias would not care.

Post a Reply to dan Cancel Reply