Will Egypt ever catch the people traffickers?

Belfast, January 14, 2011. Last week I wrote about the plight of African migrants held hostage by people-traffickers in Egypt.

The Egyptian government is under international pressure to stop this disgusting racket but claims it can't find any sign of the migrants or the traffickers.

However, a group of Egyptian human rights organisations seem to be having better luck than the authorities. They have even made contact with one of the migrants held captive in Sinai:

"The Eritrean refugee said that he is detained in a metal container with 15 other hostages by a group of Bedouins, because he has not been able to pay the money demanded (generally ranging between $3,000 and $8,000).

He added that the traffickers only provide two pieces of bread and some salty water per day, and that he has been transferred several times to different detention centres in Sinai where hundreds of immigrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia are detained and tortured – some of whom have been held for more than six months."

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the Egyptian organisations called on the authorities "to stop dismissing the facts on the ground and put an end to this terrible human tragedy. The government is obliged by its own anti-trafficking law, passed last May, to deal with these crimes as crimes of human trafficking."

Meanwhile, the Italian-based EveryOne Group continues to post more and more information about the traffickers and their victims on its website. In one report it identifies the head of the traffickers as a Palestinian Bedouin called Abu Khaled. Last year, Khaled was interviewed by the AFP news agency about his smuggling activities through the tunnels into Gaza.

In the photo, a Palestinian smuggler works inside a tunnel beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border in Rafah.

Will Egypt ever catch the people traffickers?

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