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Bedouin Smugglers Abuse Africans Held for Ransom, Israeli Group Says
Wednesday, 16 February 2011 16:00 Dina Kraft
. TEL AVIV — About 1,000 African migrants trying to cross the Sinai Desert from Egypt into Israel have been systematically beaten, raped and held captive for ransom in the past year by the Bedouin smugglers they hired to help them make the journey, an Israeli advocacy organization said Tuesday.
Testimony collected by the Hotline for Migrant Workers in a new report depicts a network of torture camps in the northern reaches of the desert where the migrants, mostly Eritrean, are sometimes held for months in abusive conditions, while their Bedouin captors press their families abroad to send thousands of dollars in ransom money.
“I was a virgin when I arrived in the desert,” said a 21-year-old Eritrean woman cited in the report, who was held for six months. “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 the $2,800 arrived did the smugglers unchain me.”
In their accounts in the report and in person, the migrants recall a pattern of abuse, including gang rapes and beatings with electric rods and heavy sticks. Often, they said, they were shackled together in groups as their armed captors kept them under guard. At one of the camps, captives were given T-shirts with numbers printed on them and were referred to by those numbers.
Physical torture typically accompanied the captors’ extortion calls, usually by satellite phone.
“The most painful moments were when they called my family as they beat me and I cried out,” said Avraham Asmara, a 25-year-old Eritrean man who was held for a month before escaping and crossing the border three weeks ago. “I was always thinking about what my family was thinking and feeling when they heard me like this.”
At a news conference, Mr. Asmara said he had paid $3,000 to his smugglers to take him across the desert, but was taken captive. His family members in Eritrea sold their home and belongings to send his captors $8,000 of the $10,000 ransom they demanded, he said.
There is concern among Israeli human rights officials that the upheaval in Egypt will make it even more difficult to crack down on the kidnappings, which they say started last year. The Bedouins and Egyptian authorities have had tense relations for years, with the Bedouins complaining of discrimination and harsh treatment. The vast, sparsely populated Sinai Desert has long been something of a lawless no man’s land.
Reut Michaeli, executive director of the Tel Aviv-based Hotline for Migrant Workers, voiced concern that when the migrants, including women pregnant from rape, do make it across the border to Israel, they are not provided state-financed medical treatment.
The group Physicians for Human Rights — Israel, which runs a clinic here for migrants, referred 165 women for abortions in 2010 and suspects that about half were raped while in Sinai, according to its report in December.
According to official estimates, about 33,000 Africans, most of them migrant workers seeking better economic prospects but some of them refugees from war in Sudan, have crossed into Israel from Egypt since 2005, setting off a national debate about how to handle the influx. The number rose to about 13,600 last year from fewer than 4,900 in 2009, according to Israeli Parliament figures.
Male migrants who were held captive told of being beaten when they tried to protect the women, and there are also reports that men were raped.
Musa Naiem, 35, from Sudan said the camp where he was held, in sight of a Bedouin village, was a fenced-in pen with three rooms covered by a cloth roof. He and others slept outside in the sand and had no toilets or showers.
Mr. Asmara said he liberated himself and his fellow captives with a handcuff key secretly recovered from the captors by a woman who had been raped. On a day the smugglers were in another room, he unlocked himself and the others. Together they overwhelmed and disarmed their captors and fled into the desert.
It turned out they were only a half-hour’s walk from the Israeli border.
Pulling the small silver key from his wallet, Mr. Asmara turned it in his hand and said: “This is for me to remember. This is the key that helped 50 people find freedom from hell.”
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Complimentary talk brought to you by African's so-called friend, Mo ASS than brains.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Actually, the Israeli bedouin are more friendly with the Israelis than the Egyptians. Typically they side with Israel and have been known to be spies for Israeli intelligence.
Sub-Saharan Africans are treated terrible by both Israeli and Egyptian officials. Egyptian officers have been known to shoot Eritreans and Sudanese refugees dead for crossing into Israel. Since Israel and America are connected most Africans believe that Israel will be a stepping stone to the west. Also right-wing Christian and Jewish groups work together to supposedly help many of the Christian Sudanese and other Africans more so than the Egyptian Muslim government.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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True, Bedouins in Israel can serve in the Israeli Military. Also, one of Israeli Consul to the U.S. is a Bedouin.
My question is why are the Bedouins this way and do they view the city people (Arabs) as being different from them?
I know the Egyptians Bedouins in Sinai have been instrumental in helping the Egyptian Army in the 1973 war with Israel and they were very vital in helping Egypt cross the Suez Canal and achieve a partial victory that eventually led to higher moral and the return of the Sinai Peninsula.
-------------------- Chairman Mau Posts: 422 | From: Leave No Stone Unturned! | Registered: Feb 2011
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I included the Sinai in with the Israeli bedouins also because they share the same views as the Israeli bedouin. The reason why both groups dislike Egypt very much is because of the bad treatment by Egyptians. Which is ironic because Israelis treat Negev bedouins bad. Also a good amount of Negev bedouin and even Israeli bedouin share a distinct origin in the Delta and Upper Egyptian fellahin.
Like most humans bedouins are opportunistic and will side with the group in which they will gain the greatest reward. Also Arab unity is somewhat a myth that is only believed by staunch pan-Arabist usually in the Levantine states. Egyptians also foolishly fall into the supposed pan-Arabic umbrella because of past indoctrination.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Ausar, Just out of curiousity what is the significance of "sub-Saharan African" that you used above. I have looked at that term in terms of its history and concluded that it is a racist, Eurocentric colonial term. Why not be more specific and say "East African" or "West Africa" or "Southern African" etc.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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You are correct. I try not to use it but in some instances I felt it was appropriate when discussing their treatment in modern Egypt. Its just my laziness and not really an agenda on my part.
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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It doesnt matter egyptians and Isreali have never had a upper hand on Horn of africans especially Ethiopia and eritrea to an extent until Now.
The route from the Horn to Egypt threw the Sinai is a Ethiopian route for Ages. At one point there were more Habashi in Palestine than anyone else. Even during Salaadin who could not kick the habashi out of Jerusalem found them to Have the Deed to Jerusalem What u think about that.
Taking a Hajj to Jerusalem was an Ethiopian Thing Way Before they were taking Pilgrimages to Mecca. Egyptians and Arabs have been drooling over taking over Habashi and its for that reason why Turks,Egyptians,Sudanese,and Arabs have always Feared Horn of Africans and could never subdue them.
Egyptians and Israeli are no threat to Ethiopia or Eritrea and they know that. The horrible thing about it is that They both Know that the Sinai was always a Aksumawi/Kushawi Route way before arabs entered africa.
Check the documents from when Turkish-Egyptian ruled eritrea for a time and the dealings they had with the Naqib who felt that the Turks,egyptians,and arabs were no match for the Negus.
Posts: 410 | From: Al-Ard | Registered: Jun 2009
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I dont know what those pictures are trying to prove. Mostly all Eritreans speak arabic so those guides who are taking them threw the desert are actually agents of the jews.
The bedu u are talking about are really Raishaida who are the smugglers of everything on both sides of the Red Sea.
Israeli army actually shot a convoy of smugglers in sudan who they thought were arab militants smuggling guns into palestine, instead they killed a bunch of eritreans,ethiopians,somalians,and Rashaida Tribesmen.
Egyptians and israeli have the same agenda when it comes to migrants it they are from the Horn be Warned. Yemen only allows Somali migrants but there are more yemeni/ethiopians.
Posts: 410 | From: Al-Ard | Registered: Jun 2009
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^As always, I am keen to know who are indigenous people, and who are descendants of invaders or mulattoes.
The Rashaida
Wiki
The Rashaida or Rashaayda (also see Bani Rasheed) (Arabic: بني رشيد, الرشايدة) are an ethnic group populating Eritrea and north-east Sudan. In 1846, many Rashaida migrated from Hejaz in present day Saudi Arabia into what is now Eritrea and north-east Sudan after tribal warfare had broken out in their homeland. The Rashaida of Sudan and Eritrea live in close proximity with the Beja people. Large numbers of Bani Rasheed are also found on the Arabian Peninsula.They are related to the Banu Abs tribe. The Rashaida are Arabs who kept their traditional dress, culture, customs, camel breeds and religion (Sunni Islam). The racing camel breeds of the Rashaida tribe are prized all over Sudan and the Arabian Peninsula and fetch very high prices. The Rashaida speak Hejazi Arabic.
People are getting raped, beaten, fleeced out their savings and sometimes killed, yet some of us are only worried about their looks!
We should be more concerned with the safety of these people and find a way for them to have better lives at home, instead of being tortured in the wilderness of the desert.
Many Africans need help, but their own governments are the main cause of their misery. The people need to rise and overthrow all those corrupt dictators and ask for their freedom to live under better economic conditions.
-------------------- Chairman Mau Posts: 422 | From: Leave No Stone Unturned! | Registered: Feb 2011
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^How dare you spew such nonsense to me, as if I were an ignorant person.
These Russian immigrants to Israel couldn't care less about Israel or Judaism. They go to Israel because they know that they can live on American funded welfare, similar to what the Afrikaners enjoyed in South Africa. And after that, someone will get a job for them.
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