photo: spiegelonline
A trade as ancient as slavery has not yet been wiped out. One of the places where it is alive and well is the Sinai peninsula.
Information about human trafficking trade in the Sinai is trickling in, and it appears that no one in the area is willing to stop the illegal activity.
These are people that are 'stolen' from their villages somewhere in Africa, chained and brought to the Sinai area, where they are held for ransom.
Some if not all of the kidnap victims are beaten, tortured and raped.
The Sinai Peninsula, the bridge between Egypt and Israel, is the area where most of the victims are brought, after they are taken from their villages in countries such as Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia or Sudan. They are at first lured with the promise of work in Europe or other similar wealthier countries.
They are brought to the Sinai because since Egypt's civil unrest and deposition of the old regime, there is no one patrolling the area any more. It has become a place where criminals and terrorists are making their home. And one of the way they get money is to exploit human trafficking victims. The murder rate in the area is out of control. And the kidnapped victims are kept even after the ransom is paid, and continue to be beated and tortured.
The problem also is exacerbated by the fact that the indigenous bedouin tribes cannot interfere with the affairs of other tribes. They can only step in and help if the prisoners are able to escape their captors.
Some of the escapees tell horror stories of being kept awake 24/7 and if any of them nodded off they would be burned with cigarettes or lighters. Of the 22 prisoners kept in the desert in one location alone, 11 of them died during their time in captivity. If there are any women captured, they are used as sex slaves by the captors and raped repeatedly night after night.
An estimate of the prisoners recently kept in these conditions in the area goes as high as 7,000, with about 4,000 estimated to have died from the torture received. The bodies of the dead prisoners are often tossed in the desert, where the locals find the bodies of the mostly African prisoners.
Many in the muslim communities condemn the traffickers and some of them are shunned from society. But in many cases, their excuse for working in the human trafficking trade, is that it is the only work available to them.
In a new and disturbing trend, a number of these refugees end up in Israel after being kidnapped from the Sudan and brought to the Sinai. There are reports that the Sudanese police in some cases are in on the trade, probably due to bribes, and that they cooperate in the transfer of the victims across the Sudanese border. Once the ransom is paid, and if they are released, they are sometimes dropped off near the Israeli border, where they can be easily shot if they wander across the Israeli border.
The Egyptian government, which should be the nation overseeing the Sinai area, is refusing access to the UNCHR who want to visit the prison camps where the abducted prisoner are held. They contend that the prisoners are in the Sinai illegaly and have no right to asylum.
Egypt is basically breaking its own laws, which forbid human trafficking. If someone smuggles produce in Egypt they are sent to jail, but if they traffic human beings in the Sinai they are protected by Egypt's acquiescence.
And many point the finger at the outwardly clear racism that is inherent in this problem. That Egypt is not interested in protecting the abductee because most of them are African black and not muslim. They are considered migrants who are roaming willingly the Sinai to usurp work for the existing citizens.
At this time, watchdog agencies believe that there are as many as 1,000 human trafficking prisoners in the Sinai.
For those who have escaped their captors, their hope is still to reach Europe and find work, where they can repay their family the ransom money they gave their captors.
Source: Spiegelonline 3.30.13
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