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From: IRIN <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 3:07 PM
Subject: Sudan and Egypt implicated in human trafficking
To: Elisabeth Janaina <[email protected]>
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*Sudan and Egypt implicated in human trafficking
<http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=99632>*
[image: lead photo]JOHANNESBURG, 12 February 2014 (IRIN) - Since 2009,
hundreds and possibly thousands of refugees, most of them Eritrean, have
been kidnapped in eastern Sudan and sold to traffickers in Egypt's Sinai
Peninsula, where they are held and tortured until their relatives can raise
tens of thousands of dollars in ransom money. According to a report
released on 11 February by Human Rights Watch (HRW), security forces in
Sudan and Egypt have either turned a blind eye to this violent trade in
men, women and children or, in some cases, colluded with the traffickers.
The 79-page report <http://www.hrw.org/node/122899> documents the
kidnapping and torture of victims, and describes how Sudanese and Egyptian
security officers facilitated abductions by traffickers, or failed to take
action against them. HRW alleges that at Sudan's eastern border with
Eritrea, near the town of Kassala, police and border guards regularly
intercept Eritrean refugees and hand them over to traffickers, while
security officials allow traffickers and their victims to pass through
checkpoints between Sudan and Egypt's Suez Canal.
"When the authorities fail to tackle traffickers or help them, it's not
just a criminal law enforcement issue, it becomes a human rights issue,"
Gerry Simpson, a senior refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch and the
report's author, told IRIN. "The [Sudanese and Egyptian] states have been
wilfully turning a blind eye to massive criminal activity at best and at
worst are actively supporting some of it."
* Smugglers become traffickers*
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says 300,000 Eritreans had sought asylum
outside their country by the beginning of 2013. The majority left after
2004, fleeing widespread human rights abuses, including mandatory and
indefinite military service, arbitrary arrest and detention, and severe
restrictions on freedom of expression and movement. Most leave without the
exit permits required by Eritrean law, risking severe punishment if they
are caught. In the last decade, tens of thousands have registered as
refugees at camps in eastern Sudan and Ethiopia, but most have quickly
moved on in search of better conditions and opportunities.
Between 2006 and 2012, many hired smugglers to help them reach Israel via
Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Around 2009, reports began to surface of smugglers
turning on their clients during the journey through Sinai, and holding them
in torture camps while they extorted increasingly large sums of money from
desperate relatives. By the end of 2010, Sudanese traffickers were
kidnapping Eritreans in or near eastern Sudan's refugee camps and selling
them to Egyptian traffickers operating in Sinai. Most
victims<http://www.irinnews.org/report/92921/egypt-israel-tortured-for-ransom-in-the-sinai-desert>said
they never intended to go to Egypt or Israel.
A
report<http://www.eepa.be/wcm/dmdocuments/Small_HumanTrafficking-Sinai2-web-3.pdf>published
in December 2013 by three human rights activists and researchers
estimated that between 2009 and 2013, as many as 30,000 people were victims
of trafficking and torture in the Sinai Peninsula, and that between 5,000
and 10,000 of them did not survive their ordeal.
Yonathan Habte*, 28, is among those who survived. He left Eritrea in March
2012 and was kidnapped from Shagarab refugee camp near Kassala a few weeks
later. He had been warned about the threat of kidnappers in eastern Sudan
but thought he would be safe in the camp. In fact, by 2012 UNHCR was
recording about 30 kidnappings a week in and around eastern Sudan's refugee
camps.
* Kidnapping ordeal*
Habte told IRIN how he had been collecting firewood one morning when three
vehicles entered the camp, and he and two other men were grabbed. His
kidnappers took him and 30 other Eritreans to Egypt, where they were
divided between several traffickers operating torture camps near the
Israeli border.
"They made us call home to our families two or three times a day, and every
time they beat us up so our families heard us screaming," he said.
After his family had paid a ransom of US$3,500, Habte was sold to another
trafficker, who demanded $30,000 for his release. At the second camp, the
torture intensified. Habte and 12 other hostages, including three women,
one of whom was pregnant, were beaten constantly and hung up by their
ankles or wrists for hours at a time. While on the phone to their friends
and relatives, molten plastic was dripped on their skin so their screams
would ensure the ransom money was paid as quickly as possible.
Meron Estefanos, an Eritrean journalist and activist living in Stockholm,
Sweden, has been listening to the screams of Eritrean refugees held hostage
in Sudan and Egypt for three years. During a weekly radio programme she
takes calls from the refugees and their relatives, and broadcasts these to
listeners. In 2012, she received a phone call from her cousin, who had been
kidnapped near Kassala and taken into Sinai. Her captors were demanding
$37,000 for her release.
"If you're listening to your cousin being gang-raped or burnt - the cries,
the begging...you just want to end those phone calls"
"If you're listening to your cousin being gang-raped or burnt - the cries,
the begging... you just want to end those phone calls," Estefanos told IRIN.
"So I collected the money [from friends and relatives] and borrowed some."
But, after the traffickers released her cousin, she was arrested by
Egyptian soldiers and held in a prison in Sinai for seven months. "At first
we didn't know where she was," said Estefanos. "We thought [the
traffickers] had killed her. It took four months to find her."
The Human Rights Watch report says it is common for recently released
trafficking victims to be arrested by Egyptian border police and detained
for many months at police stations in northern Sinai until they can pay
their airfare to Eritrea or Ethiopia.
"Egyptian authorities, in effect, hold the trafficking victims hostage a
second time, subjecting them to indefinite and arbitrary detention until
their relatives can produce the money for the air ticket, which secures
their release and removal from Egypt," the report says. Detainees are
denied access to adequate medical care for their injuries and
asylum-seeking procedures.
Estefanos paid for her cousin's flight to Ethiopia, where she finally
received treatment for severe burns and now lives in a refugee camp.
* Survivors disappear in Sinai*
By the time Habte was released, he was in a critical condition but evaded
arrest and was carried across the border into Israel by fellow Eritrean
refugees. Doctors in Israel saved his life but could not save his hands,
which require advanced reconstructive surgery he could not pay for.
Israel has since completed a fence that virtually seals its border with
Egypt. In 2013, only 36 irregular migrants were intercepted while trying to
cross into Israel from Egypt, compared to over 10,000 in 2012, before the
fence was
erected<http://www.irinnews.org/report/99095/horn-migrants-risk-new-routes-to-reach-europe>.
In 2013 the Egyptian military also launched an
offensive<http://www.irinnews.org/report/99295/sinai-destined-to-suffer>against
Islamic militants in northern Sinai, which has continued into 2014.
The human rights activists report released in December 2013, which
Estefanos co-authored, suggests that the sealing off of escape routes into
Israel and the military campaign in the Sinai desert have resulted in
increasing numbers of trafficking victims disappearing and presumably dying
following the payment of a ransom and their release.
Yonathan Habte: "At least, if I died it wouldn't go
on"<http://Photo/Details/201402120824570010/>
Photo: Courtesy of Filmon Tsehaye <http://www.gofundme.com/4wn33k>
JOHANNESBURG/NAIROBI, 12 February 2014 (IRIN) - In March 2012, Yonathan
Habte*, then 26, decided to flee Eritrea where he had evaded military
service and was facing jail. With a background in computer engineering, he
was confident he could make a life in another African country. Instead, he
was kidnapped near the Sudanese border and trafficked to Egypt, where he
barely survived three months in two different camps in the lawless Sinai
region, near the Israeli border. He talked to IRIN over the phone from
Sweden. Full
report<http://www.irinnews.org/report/99631/yonathan-habte-at-least-if-i-died-it-wouldn-t-go-on>
A by-product of the military campaign appears to have been the
destruction<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/12/egypt-sinai-trafficking-torture-fear-201312682516380563.html>of
many of the houses used by traffickers to hold their victims, although
Simpson of HRW and Estefanos both say this was not a stated aim of the
operation.
"At one point, they rescued about 150 hostages, who were chained with each
other, only to put them in prison and deport them," said Estefanos. "I have
pictures of the houses where hostages were held, copies of [ransom]
payments, but they [Egyptian authorities] never approached me to ask for
that evidence... they've never been interested."
* Changing routes*
Since the military crackdown in Sinai started, Estefanos has received more
calls about Eritreans being held for ransom in Sudan than in Egypt. "Some
are still being taken to Sinai, but it has become more difficult now
because of the military operation."
Meanwhile, increasing numbers of Eritreans are avoiding Egypt and Israel,
and trying to reach Europe via Libya instead, risking treacherous desert
and Mediterranean crossings. Italy recently released
figures<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26043057>showing that
nearly 10,000 Eritreans reached its shores in 2013, a 400
percent increase from the previous year. Of the more than 350 migrants who
drowned when their boat sank off the coast of Lampedusa Island in October
2013, most were Eritreans and, according to Estefanos, 12 were survivors of
torture camps in Sinai.
In its report, Human Rights Watch accuses both Sudan and Egypt of failing
to take action to stop the trafficking and abuse of Eritrean refugees.
However, Chiara Cardoletti-Carroll, the UNHCR assistant representative in
Sudan, argued that in 2013 the Sudanese government took a number of
important steps to prevent kidnappings and prosecute traffickers, including
endorsing a joint initiative by UNHCR and the International Organization
for Migration (IOM) to combat trafficking.
She noted that the deployment of a rapid emergency force outside the
refugee camps near Kassala, and increased policing around the camps, had
successfully deterred traffickers. "We have not had a single kidnapping
incident out of the eastern camps since February 2013," she told IRIN,
adding that trafficking cases reported to UNHCR through its victim
counselling services had also gone down significantly.
She confirmed that the routes used by Eritrean refugees had changed, with
more heading to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, which has become a
jumping-off point for Libya. Khartoum is now becoming a "hot spot" for
smugglers and traffickers.
Regional cooperation on the issue, particularly between Sudan and Egypt, is
still lacking. "On this front, I feel there's a long way to go," said
Cardoletti-Carroll.
ks/he
Read report online <http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=99632>
------------------------------
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