Refugees in the Sinai: Egyptian police kill an Eritrean on the Israeli border

Rafah, January 5th, 2011. Egyptian police fired on African migrants on the border with Israel. Last Sunday, while the shootout between the police and traffickers was underway - and which led to the death of a young police officer in Rafah - a border guard patrol opened fire on a young Eritrean who was attempting to cross the border into Israel.

“After the ministerial circular to Egyptian border officials telling them not to fire on refugees, and after the operation last Sunday against the Bedouin smugglers of Rafah,” say Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau, co-presidents of EveryOne Group, “we all thought that the Egyptian authorities had changed their way of operating, and were finally beginning to pursue the traffickers. However, it appears that nothing has changed. The very same day, in fact, a patrol of border guards shot the Etritrean boy in cold blood, he died with two bullet wounds to the stomach. The young man was not armed and had probably just been released by the traffickers. He had refused to stop when told to by the guards, understandably terrified after hearing about all the killings of African migrants on the border between Egypt and Israel.

The murder of this boy is yet another crime committed by the Egyptian authorities against refugees. If we think of what the boy must have suffered at the hands of the traffickers, his murder is even more tragic.” The news of this latest immigration tragedy was released by News Agency and taken up today by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Meanwhile the construction of a 240 km-long barrier continues. The barrier is being erected by the Israeli government to prevent African refugees crossing into the Jewish state. “Our organization, along with Medici per i Diritti Umani (Doctors for Human Rights) and the NGO Global Crisis Solution Center, has appealed to the government of Israel not only to consider its own security, but also to remember how the Jewish state was founded by refugees and, therefore, not to refuse the migrants entry. It is disconcerting too, however, how the United Nations and the European Union are able to look on with indifference at these episodes of murder, torture, rape, and the endless atrocities being committed on young people, women and innocent children.

They have become silent and guilty accomplices, something which is totally unacceptable from organizations that place human rights at the basis of their own operations.” The Egyptian authorities, contacted by EveryOne Group, confirmed the shooting at the border, and the arrest of an unknown number of African migrants, which has increased exponentially in recent weeks, compared to 2010. “We believe the 200 African refugees held prisoners in the fruit orchard in Abu Khaled's Rafah are no longer in the hands of traffickers,” say the co-presidents of EveryOne Group.

“Most have been arrested and are being detained in the Egyptian expulsion centres, pending deportation. Only about 50 immigrants are left in the shipping containers, six women and some young Eritreans, who are probably dying. Some of the Africans, the poorest, whose families are unable to pay a sum deemed sufficient by the traffickers for their ransom payment, will probably be caught up in the black market for human organs, or be used for forced labor. How can a world that defines itself civilized not feel guilty for allowing these tragedies to take place, and not lift a finger to prevent this new Holocaust?”

Meanwhile, thanks to the international campaign against human trafficking, aimed at all African governments involved in the phenomenon, it appears that the authorities of some countries have found the will to oppose the racket. Police in South Turkana, Kenya, yesterday arrested eight Ethiopians involved in human trafficking. The police commissioner in the region said it is a major success in the fight against the criminal organization that runs the trafficking of migrants and slaves in Kenya.

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