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United Nations’ report indicated that Eritrea continued propping up Tigrai People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM) in violation of Security Council resolution 1907 (2009).

The latest report of the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, released last week, depicts TPDM (a.k.a. “Demhit”) as the strongest among Eritrea-based Ethiopian rebel groups with around 20,000 fighters.

The UN monitors learnt from multiple sources that “weapons in the logistics department of Eritrea Defence Forces (EDF) are being systematically transferred to TPDM. The report added:

“A reliable former senior Eritrean military source told the Group that he was informed by his former colleagues that the following weapons had been transferred from EDF to the TPDM in autumn 2013, most likely during the month of September: sniper rifles, Walther PP semi-automatic pistols, Doshkas, Tokarev T pistols, and binoculars”.

TPDM (a.k.a. “Demhit”) was founded in 2001, immediately after the end of the Ethio-Eritrea border war, when Asmara’s decided to continue the war by proxy. Its members are drawn from the northern region, Tigrai. While Ethiopian officials often claim TPDM is mostly consisted of fugitives and mercenaries, the report describes them as “dissidents from Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)” – the regional wing of the Ethiopian ruling part.

Yet, multiple sources interviewed by the monitoring group indicated that:

* “TPDM had participated in an armed crackdown on internal dissent inside Eritrea at the end of 2013″.

* TPDM had “a dual function as an Ethiopian armed opposition group and a protector of the [President Isaias] Afwerki regime”.

* TPDM fighters “are seen to be personally loyal to [the President], unlike the defence forces whose loyalties have been questioned by the President in recent years.”

* “Eritrea’s support to TPDM appears to be more sustained and organized than its support for other Ethiopian armed groups”.

Nonetheless, Eritrean officials denied providing arms to TPDM without providing detailed information and claimed that “Ethiopian armed groups were a creation of Ethiopia’s internal dynamics”.

According to the report, the overall supervision of Ethiopian armed groups(other than ONLF) is under Eritrean Colonel Fitsum Yishak (a.k.a. “Lenin”), while Colonel Tesfaldet Habteselasie (in the President’s Office) is in charge of all foreign armed groups.

TPDM’s vaguely worded political program states it aim “to establish a popular democratic government of Ethiopia where the rights of nation and nationality are respected and narrow nationalism is abolished”, arguing that “[the current system] being organized narrowly based on clan and family orientations… It is striving to exercise a divided and rule policy to create chaos and disintegration in the name of self-determination.”

Read the section of the report on TPDM

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Tigray People’s Democratic Movement

70. The Monitoring Group received multiple corroborating testimonies that Eritrea continues to support the Tigray People’s Democratic Movement (TPDM), in violation of paragraph 15 (b) of resolution 1907 (2009).

71. TPDM, also known by its Tigrinya acronym “Demhit”, is an armed Ethiopian opposition group founded in 2001 by dissidents from Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of Ethiopia. TPDM says its aim is “to establish a popular democratic government of Ethiopia where the rights of nation and nationality are respected”.[i]

72. The Monitoring Group has previously reported on Eritrea’s support for TPDM (S/2012/545). In 2012, the Group found that TPDM was being trained in Harena, a Red Sea island off the eastern coast of Eritrea, as well as in smaller military training outposts close to the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Monitoring Group obtained information that TPDM continues to be trained in Harena (see annex 7.1 for a map with the location of Harena).[ii]

73. TPDM regularly issues publicly available videos in which it affirms its commitment to taking up arms against the Government of Ethiopia.[iii] It is, however, difficult to verify information about military confrontations between TPDM and the Ethiopian army. A member of an NGO in contact with TPDM leaders told the Monitoring Group that he was informed of clashes in Benishangul, near the Amhara region of Ethiopia, in November of 2013.[iv] A former Eritrean general with active contacts inside the Eritrean military also told the Monitoring Group about an armed clash between the Ethiopian military and TPDM in the fall of 2013.[v] Moreover, the Monitoring Group received information that TPDM had participated in an armed crackdown on internal dissent inside Eritrea at the end of 2013.[vi]

74. Independent sources with relationships in the Eritrean military and with the Movement’s own leadership have told the Monitoring Group that TPDM had become the most important Ethiopian opposition group inside Eritrea and it had a dual function as an Ethiopian armed opposition group and a protector of the Afwerki regime.[vii] Its fighters, who are from the same ethnic group as President Afwerki, are seen to be personally loyal to him, unlike the defence forces whose loyalties have been questioned by the President in recent years.[viii] This is seen to be particularly relevant after the failed attempted “Forto” army mutiny confronting the Eritrean regime on 21 January 2013 (see S/2013/440).

75. The Monitoring Group estimates that there currently are tens of thousands of TPDM fighters.[ix] Two former senior Eritrean officials and a former Eritrean general, all of whom are in contact with officials in the military and Government, have told the Monitoring Group that Eritrea’s support to TPDM appears to be more

sustained and organized than its support for other Ethiopian armed groups.[x] A source with direct contacts within the leaderships of a number of armed groups described the TPDM as appearing to have “far more fighting capacity” than other Ethiopian groups.[xi]

76. The Monitoring Group also received information from two sources with active contacts inside EDF that weapons in the logistics department of EDF are being systematically transferred to TPDM.[xii] A reliable former senior Eritrean military source told the Group that he was informed by his former colleagues that the following weapons had been transferred from EDF to the TPDM in autumn 2013, most likely during the month of September: sniper rifles, Walther PP semi-automatic pistols, Doshkas, Tokarev T pistols, and binoculars.[xiii] The Monitoring Group has not been able to substantiate the information provided nor confirm whether the weapons given to TPDM came from old EDF stock or whether TPDM is being armed with weapons procured for the army after the adoption of resolution 1907 (2009).

77. In Cairo on 15 February 2014, the Monitoring Group raised the question of the source of the weapons used to arm TPDM with the Senior Political Adviser to the President of Eritrea, Mr. Gebreab. Mr. Gebreab told the Group that the Government of Eritrea does not support TPDM, which he said was interested in fighting the Government of Ethiopia. He further stated that in his view, there were no arms going to TPDM. The Monitoring Group requested additional information on TPDM in two letters dated 7 March 2014 ( see annex 1) and 1 August 2014 (see annex 3). During a videoconference on 28 July 2014, Ambassador Tesfay, did not answer the Monitoring Group’s questions about TPDM, and he said that Ethiopian armed groups were a creation of Ethiopia’s internal dynamics. He stressed that Eritrea was not engaged in any internal destabilization in Ethiopia.

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Footnotes:
[i]. This is according to the TPDM website: http://demhitonline.blogspot.com.tr/p/aim.html.
[ii]. Former Ginbot Sebat fighters told the Monitoring Group that they saw TPDM being trained in Harena. Also, interview with a former Eritrean general with active contacts within the military establishment in November 2013 and August 2014; and interview with a former senior PFDJ official in March 2014.
[iii]. ATPDM video published on 2 June 2014 claims to show TPDM fighters graduating following a military and political course: http://tpdmtv.vidmy.com/video/93i663y9zcc0. A video published on 23 May 2013 purportedly showcases the ability of TPDM to attack Ethiopia’s ruling party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuodBhoUZQ0.
[iv]. Skype interview with a member of an NGO in contact with TPDM leadership figures in July 2014.
[v]. Interview with a former Eritrean general with active contacts within the military establishment in November 2013.
[vi]. Interviews with a former senior Eritrean official in December 2013 and a former Eritrean general with active contacts within the military in November 2013. The incident was also reported in the press; see http://hornaffairs.com/en/2013/12/16/eritrea-unraveling-isaias-afeworki-authored-identity/  http://awate.com/a-mercenary-army-isaias-afwerkis-last-stand/.
[vii]. Interviews with a former PFDJ official in March 2014; a former Eritrean general with active contacts within the military establishment in November 2013; a former senior Eritrean official in December 2013; and Skype interviews with a member of an NGO in contact with TPDM leadership in July 2014 and August 2014.
[viii]. This development was described to the Monitoring Group by a former senior Eritrean official in December 2013, a former PFDJ official in March 2014, a former Eritrean general with active contacts within the military establishment in November 2013, and an Eritrean source advising the president of Djibouti with close contacts in the Sudan and Ethiopia in January 2014.
[ix]. This is based on figures obtained from a former high-ranking Eritrean official in November 2013 and August 2014, and a former senior PFDJ official in March 2014, both of whom estimated that there are currently around 20,000 TPDM fighters. Moreover, a European-based human rights activist who is in close contact with Eritrean refugees also told the Monitoring Group in April 2014 that she had been informed by newly arrived refugees that there were “tens of thousands” of TPDM fighters in Eritrea.
[x]. Interviews with a former senior Eritrean official in December 2013, a former PFDJ official in March 2014, a former Eritrean general with active contacts within the military establishment in November 2013 and August 2014.
[xi]. Skype interviews with a member of an NGO in contact with leaders of Ethiopian armed groups in July 2014 and August 2014.
[xii]. Interviews with a former senior Eritrean official in March 2014; and a former Eritrean general with active contacts within the military establishment in August 2014.
[xiii]. Interview with a former Eritrean general with active contacts within the military establishment in November 2013.

Paris (DIPLOMAT.SO)- Eritrea maintained its position in what it called Reporters Without Borders (trio-infernal) usual, which consists of Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, where freedom of the press simply non-existent.

The 2014 World Press Freedom Index spotlights the negative impact of conflicts on freedom of information and its protagonists.

The ranking of some countries has also been affected by a tendency to interpret national security needs in an overly broad and abusive manner to the detriment of the right to inform and be informed. This trend constitutes a growing threat worldwide and is even endangering freedom of information in countries regarded as democracies.

Finland tops the index for the fourth year running, closely followed by Netherlands and Norway, like last year.

At the other end of the index, the last three positions are again held by Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, three countries where freedom of information is non-existent. Despite occasional turbulence in the past year, these countries continue to be news and information black holes and living hells for the journalists who inhabit them.

This year’s index covers 180 countries, one more than last year. The new entry, Belize, has been assigned an enviable position (29th). Cases of violence against journalists are rare in Belize but there were some problems: defamation suits involving demands for large amounts in damages, national security restrictions on implementation of the Freedom of Information Act and sometimes unfair management of broadcast frequencies.

Sana (DIPLOMAT.SO)- According to the reports from some Eritrea and Yemen websites , that 15 soldiers of Eritrean army arrived on board a fishing boat to port in Yemen, fleeing from military service.

the Sources added , that the soldiers arrived this week safely to the fishing port of Salif Directorate, west of Hodeidah city without objection from the Eritrean Coast Guard.

Yemeni fishermen refused to reveal their names said that among Eritrean soldiers who arrived at the port in Yemen, a senior officer in the army.

Yemeni fishermen noted that Eritrean soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes and handed over their weapons and ammunition, which they hide in a wooden box to the Yemeni security authorities.

It is worth mentioning , that the soldiers who arrived to Hodeidah is the second of its kind, after fled 12 soldiers last August from the army and entered to the port of Salif ,demanding political asylum to live in peace and tranquility.

By: Diplomat

Thousands of Eritreans risk their lives each year trying to reach the United Kingdom and one man’s successful journey meant suffering privations for three years
• Click here to see the world’s most dangerous journey

He remembers running, a mad dash towards the hills as the ground rippled with the mushroom puffs of bullets. The soldiers were close behind, scrambling across the plain as he fled barefoot across the rocks.

These were Mehari Solomon’s first steps of what is considered the world’s most perilous migration route and already he had learnt that luck would be his most cherished companion.

It was October 2010 and Solomon’s sprint across the lunar landscape of northern Eritrea marked the start of a three-year odyssey to Britain that would see him chased by traffickers, forced to drink his own urine, held at gunpoint by smugglers and cross the Channel in the back of a lorry carrying chilled cabbages.

Solomon’s story, far from unique, is a very modern tale of migration, his journey articulating the increasingly desperate scramble from one of the world’s most rapacious regimes to a place that Eritreans regard as the promised land.

That October morning, Solomon gazed back at Me’eter prison where he had spent nearly two years, living beneath a vast tent with almost 500 other prisoners of conscience caught during the government’s crackdown on Eritrea’s minority churches.

Me’eter military jail was one of Eritrea’s most notorious, certainly its most remote. Encircled by mountains, watchtowers and wide thorn bushes designed to rip a man to shreds, escape was considered impossible. Inmates died from the extreme heat. Others were tortured to death.

But that morning Solomon made a break for freedom. ”Twenty-four of us were sent out to collect wood with a detail of armed guards. I started to move discreetly to the edge of the group and just ran to the left. They started shooting and chasing me.”

He ran all day, pausing to wrap his shirt around his bleeding feet, living off strips of bread made from sorghum flour that he had wrapped around his body. For three days the 20-year-old picked his way south, circumventing military checkpoints, past the town of Shieb and on to Ghinda, where he flagged down a passing lorry and hitchhiked to his birthplace, Asmara.

For several months Solomon laid low with relatives in the city’s northern suburbs. But the net was tightening. Periodic sweeps were conducted by the military to seize ”dissidents” on the run. In February 2011 his luck expired and he was picked up by the military and sent to the Wia military camp near Massawa and from there spent 18 months working in a government metal factory near Asmara.

Solomon began plotting the next stage of his escape to the UK. The UN believes that almost 4,000 Eritreans a month are secretly fleeing the repressive rule of the country’s dictator, Isaias Afewerki; hundreds of thousands have already left. A sophisticated black market trade has evolved to facilitate such massive migration. The trick is knowing who you can trust: spies are everywhere. In May 2013 Solomon successfully obtained fake identification papers for 10,000 nafka (currently £400) and caught the bus west, towards the infamous army checkpoint at Teseney. Failure to convince the guards can mean death. ”Months earlier five men were taken to the market square and shot,” he said.

Solomon survived and travelled to the town of Omhajer, a 50-minute walk from the Sudanese border. At nightfall he and a guide set off. Solomon recalls he could see the silhouette of sentries, the observation posts and the nests of machine-gunners. ”We headed between two security huts. To the left was internal security, to the right the border guards.”

His fixer turned back and Solomon crawled between the watchtowers whose border guards have been instructed to shoot on sight. No one knows how many migrants have been killed or kidnapped by corrupt Eritrean military officers along this stretch.

Another danger soon materialised. Armed gangs from the Rashaida tribe, operating as human-trafficking syndicates, scour the border region. Eritreans caught are taken to Egypt and sold to Bedouin tribes who have been consistently linked to cases of rape, torture and the execution of Eritreans.

Solomon walked 12 hours through the night, traversing 50km before being taken by Sudanese soldiers to Shagarab, the United Nations refugee camp which held around 29,500 people. Finally, Solomon should have been safe. But Shagarab had become a magnet for traffickers. Solomon recalls being sized up by Rashaida gangs walking to the ration centre. ”They stared, looking if you were strong enough to make them good money. Once there was a woman and they picked her up; she was screaming but they still took her.”

When collecting dung for fuel, Solomon witnessed several kidnappings. ”There were two girls walking ahead, 15 metres from us. Suddenly these pick-ups came speeding towards them, very fast. They began running, but the pick-ups cut them off and took them.” Solomon reported the incident to a camp official, but never discovered what happened to the victims. He assumed that they were taken north to Kassala, the Rashaida’s principal trafficking hub in Sudan, and sold as sex slaves.

The situation deteriorated. Four months before Solomon arrived, the UN confirmed it was ”seeing rising incidents of abductions and disappearances of mainly Eritrean refugees … in and around refugee camps.” In 2012, 551 people disappeared from Shagarab. In his 20 days inside the camp, Solomon believes at least 10 people were abucted.

There is anger among Britain’s Eritrean community that international agencies were too slow to protect them. Afwerki Haile, of London-based religious human rights charity Release Eritrea, said they wrote to the UN last year demanding answers, but had yet to receive a response.

At the start of June, Solomon was warned by other Eritreans to leave the camp after his role in furious clashes with the Rashaida over the abductions. Although the traffickers withdrew, they pledged to return and wreak vengeance. ”I was told we would be murdered.” Solomon and around 100 other Eritreans paid 500 Sudanese pounds (currently £55) to a local people-smuggler who claimed he could evade the Rashaida. Even so, it was potentially dangerous.

”A previous group of 14 men and women had been attacked, one was shot in the leg and the kidnappers got some of the women.” Solomon left Shagarab on foot, navigating the fast-flowing river Atbarah at night by small boat, a crossing that has seen up to 20 refugees drown in previous attempts.

From there, Solomon caught a bus north, passing through New Halfa, a route that risked fake checkpoints manned by bandits who, Solomon said, were keen on Eritreans because they were vulnerable kidnapping targets.

Even in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, Solomon learnt there was no respite from traffickers. Smugglers patrolled the city. The Sudanese government, in concert with the Eritrean, sanctioned frequent raids to repatriate migrants. Melissa Fleming, UN spokesperson in Geneva, admitted they were deeply concerned over the recent forced returns of Eritreans from Sudan. Solomon spent nearly four months keeping a low profile. Finally, word reached him that a reliable smuggling network could take him to Libya. His family wired $1,600 and one September night last year Solomon and 250 other Eritreans boarded a crowded DAF truck and, crossing the Nile, lumbered towards the Sahara.

Soon the road became a sandy track, the vehicle became frequently stuck in the dunes, its occupants ordered to dig it out with shovels. By day three, Solomon remembers feeling very weak. There was no room for food on board, just the water he sat on. On day five the truck stopped so a passenger could bury her dead son by the side of the track. ”When someone looked like they were about to die they passed us shovels ready to bury them.”

It took six days to reach the Libyan border, including a 48-hour wait after the vehicle broke down. Mechanical failure routinely precipitates death for Eritreans crossing the Sahara. In April, nine illegal immigrants died among 300 abandoned by smugglers in the Sudanese-Libyan desert. Haile said: ”A month ago we heard that another 30 people were left to die in the desert.”

They were met at the Libyan border by a squad of heavily armed traffickers, apparently working in tandem with corrupt border officials. Within three days Solomon’s water supply ran out. By that stage, everybody was drinking their urine to survive. ”I was the last one to start. We all thought we were going to die.”

Solomon described how his fellow travellers had changed. They looked different, their skin crinkled like leather, eyes sunken. Solomon says his voice became a hoarse whisper until he could barely speak.

On their 12th day in the desert, several pickups arrived with fresh water. ”That saved my life, I was convinced I was going to die,” said Solomon. Sixty hours later they arrived in the Libyan town of Ajdabiya, where they were ordered to squeeze even more tightly together while cartons of washing powder were stacked around the truck perimeter, blocking the migrants from view. Solomon had heard how a similar ploy involving cement had gone wrong, crushing 30 Eritreans to death as they lay in the back.

They set off again, travelling another 10 hours along Libya’s coastal highway. Solomon counted eight checkpoints. Each one could spell a depressing end to his journey. If caught he would be sent to one of Libya’s 19 migrant detention centres, which are packed to overflowing and rife with allegations of mistreatment. A recent investigation by Human Rights Watch found inmates who had been locked in shipping containers, beaten, whipped and hung from trees.

They reached Tripoli at dawn and were effectively placed under house arrest by heavily armed guards. ”It was like a prison, they were extremely ruthless. We were not allowed to make a sound or be seen.” His traffickers demanded more money and Solomon’s relatives wired another £1,000. Five days later Solomon was herded into a van at gunpoint and released at night by the coast, possibly near the port of Zuwara, a major hub for clandestine Mediterranean crossings.

They were ordered in single file into the dark water and towards a boat. ”There were no lifeboats, no food, it was very crowded.” In total, 240 – mainly Eritreans – crammed on board and they set off towards Europe. It was a well-worn route. Around 13,000 Eritreans have made it across the Mediterranean to Italy so far this year, according to the UN, more than the total for all of 2013.

After 12 hours at sea, Solomon became anxious as the waters grew choppy. Just three weeks earlier 350 migrants, mainly from Eritrea, drowned when their boat sank off Lampedusa, his destination. More than 1,000 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean this year. Eighteen hours after leaving Libya, Solomon said that people around him began crying with joy. An Italian coastguard vessel was sighted ahead; he had reached Europe. ”Everyone began shouting, praising God.”

From Lampedusa, Solomon was flown to Bari by the Italian authorities and from there caught the train to Milan, where he spent a month with contacts from the Eritrean diaspora. In early November he caught another train and kept heading north, to Calais. He joined a group of Eritreans living beneath a tarpaulin shelter off the Rue des Garennes, 800m from the port.

After four days, he jemmied open the door of a lorry parked in a nearby industrial zone and climbed inside with six other Eritreans. From midnight to 5am they lay in silence among a cargo of chilled cabbages. Then the vehicle began moving. They never said a word as they crossed the Channel. After an hour the truck stopped, Solomon opened the rear doors and ran. ”I had no idea where I was, but I was smiling.” He accosted a passerby and asked how to reach Croydon, site of Lunar House, where he could claim asylum. The Home Office sent him to Cardiff and, seven months after arriving, granted him asylum.

Last week, as he sipped a cup of coffee in a cafe in Newport and recounted his journey to the Observer, Solomon took a phone call. Grinning, he announced: ”That was my agency, they’ve got a job for me. Starting tonight!”

An Eritrean refugee living in Melbourne gives horrific details of human traffickers and organ harvesters in the Sinai.

An Eritrean refugee living in Melbourne has given horrific details of human traffickers and organ harvesters he says held him captive for months in Egypt.

The man, kidnapped in Sudan and taken to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, says he feared he would die as Bedouin tribesmen demanded either a ransom or one of his kidneys.

He is one of a small number of survivors in Australia of what has become a notorious trade in people and their organs in the lawless Sinai.

Beyene Weldegiorgis has the details.

Samson Habtemariam was 26 years old when he fled Eritrea, hiding in a truck.

He had been imprisoned for more than a year, then held under house arrest, accused of cooperating with opposition forces.

But after crossing the border, he was caught by Sudanese security forces, who sold him as a prisoner to a tribe of Bedouin called the Rashaida.

Samson Habtemariam eventually found himself in the Sinai Desert in neighbouring Egypt, along with other victims of a human-trafficking and organ-harvesting operation.

He has told SBS Radio’s Tigrinya program tribal leaders ordered them to pay a ransom of more than 30-thousand dollars or they would lose their kidneys.

(Tigrinya, then translated:) ”They told us that they would sell one kidney for $25,000 and two of our kidneys for $50,000. Then all of us decided to die, as there was not any way to save our lives. Some three or four people were dying every day. We were blindfolded, we couldn’t see each other, and, therefore, we could not discuss anything. You could not know who is dying or alive. Because there was a guard for 24 hours, we could not discuss anything.”

He says he and the others were held in a house where kidneys were removed.

(Tigrinya, then translated:) ”The house was full of human bodies. If you pick anything from the ground, you find human hairs, bones. These bodies were the people who died after their kidneys have been taken. After the operation, they dump the body in that house. There were bodies that were thrown outside as well.”

Samson Habtemariam says he was imprisoned for six months, with his family unable to raise the ransom.

Then one night, he and others in the camp staged a mass breakout.

(Tigrinya, then translated:) ”Thirty-five of us were tied. If one of your hands is free, the other one is tied with another leg. You cannot run, but we ran by rolling on the ground. Then, they started to shoot at us. From the 35 people, most of them were killed. Two of them entered Israel on the same night. Nine of us were hiding in bushes. In total, 11 people escaped.”

He says he initially found refuge in a mosque.

He then travelled to Cairo, before being resettled in Australia by the United Nations relief agency, the UNHCR.

The director of Human Rights Concern Eritrea, Elsa Chyrum, says Mr Habtemariam’s case is definitely not an isolated one.

”Many like him who fled persecution in their own country were kidnapped at the Eritrean and Sudanese border and sold and resold by traffickers to the highest bidders and, from there, taken to the Sinai Desert. There, they were subjected to torture, rape, chained and beaten, and also demanded to pay ransoms up to $45,000 per person. We have interviewed many people who were asked to pay between $30,000 and $45,000. So for the traffickers, it becomes an income-generating business.”

Sister Azezet Kidane, also known as Sister Aziza, is an Eritrean-born Catholic nun who works as a volunteer with Physicians for Human Rights Israel.

She has interviewed well over a thousand refugees who have suffered kidnapping, torture, rape and forced labour while passing through the Sinai.

She recently spoke at a conference in the Vatican.

”I met people burned with melted plastics. I have met people burned with kerosene. I have met people with deep wounds with chains. I met people who became blinded because, for six months, eight months, they were blindfolded, and, when they take them out to the sun, they lose their sight. The worst is when their mind and soul is wounded.”

Various international organisations, including the United Nations, have reported thousands of refugees fall victim to people traffickers and organ harvesters in the Sinai.

Ethiopia’s honorary consul to Australia, Graham Romans, cites a recent report to the European Commission finding up to 30,000 people trafficked over five years.

He says most were from Eritrea.

”Most of those who are trafficked have died in captivity, even after ransoms have been paid. It’s estimated that some 600 million US dollars has been paid out in ransoms, and the report suggests that many Eritreans do not survive the trafficking and torture. And (it’s) calculated between five (thousand) and 10,000 hostages have died or been killed in captivity, with children as young as two or three years (old) among the victims.”

Samson Habtemariam says he believes most of the people who detained him in the Sinai were Egyptian.

(Tigrinya, then translated:) ”They were Egyptians — they spoke Arabic — but I can say there were Israelis as well. There were times to see special soldiers who spoke good English. Though they didn’t speak much in front of us, sometimes they came and asked us when are we going to pay the money. But the guards were Egyptians and Palestinians.”

He also believes those removing the organs had medical training.

(Tigrinya, then translated:) ”They let the victim lay on a bed. The operators wear appropriate medical dress. They use anaesthesia. After they take the kidney from your body, they send it directly … Sorry, I don’t want to talk about this ⦠(starts to cry …) But as we have heard, they send the kidney to the neighbouring countries. It won’t go back to Egypt. Special cars come to the place. They use instruments just like what they use in hospitals. Those people are experts, they are doctors.”

Saleh Johar is an Eritrean activist who has written a book about Eritrean victims of the people smugglers.

He believes the organs are placed in cooled containers and taken by road to Cairo, or across the border into Israel, then flown to countries where recipients are waiting.

”The kidney cannot stay for more than 48 hours. So to transport it to Europe, Australia or America, you need airplanes. The closest airports are in Israel and Egypt. From this argument, if one wants to transport a kidney, it should be through Egypt or Israel.”

Egypt is a major destination and transit country for asylum seekers.

At the beginning of this year, the country held about a quarter of a million people from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Iraq.

(Transcript from World News Radio)