Sinai: In the Realm of Death

In the current weekly print supplement Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, published in the German leading newspaper SZ, a horrific story about the torture of kidnapped Africans in Egypt's Sinai is spreading across 24 pages. Called "In the Realm of Death", it is a harrowing account of an 18-day trip to hell by the award winning journalist Michael Obert and Magnum photographer Moises Saman. As the report is only published in German but contains vital information especially for Egyptian readers and government authorities, I am recounting their trip here and added translations of vital passages that are chilling to read. Wherever quotation marks are set, the passage is a direct translation of the original report.

If anyone wonders if the horrid accounts of torture practices mentioned here are factual or not just products of over imagination, I can assure you I have read and heard numerous reports to this for a long time now that are as brutal as these. A human rights organisation in Israel alone has collected testimonies from over 1,300 Africans who barely survived the torture camps in the Sinai. Their stories tell of unspeakable crimes against humans and they carry the – well documented – horrific scars and injuries to go with it. The brutalities reported here in this report sadly are factual. We have to face it, whether we like it or not.

It is my wish that more people are willing to be aware of the terrible crimes against humans that are ongoing day by day by day in the Sinai desert. And that we manage to pressure the interim Egyptian government to undertake steps to put an end to one of the biggest atrocities of our times.

I urge anyone who is fluent in German to read it. It gives harrowing insights into the mindset of the torturers of Sinai, the Egyptian authorities who look away – and a world that does not care.

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UPDATE:

Up to July 26, 2013, you could find my very long, detailed recounting of the trip the two journalists took,with a number of translated quotes from the original German article here. The reaction to this blogpost was overwhelming and the many readers, the post had, were shocked to hear what is going on in the Sinai regarding the horrific torture of innocent human beings held hostage.

However, the publishers of the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin asked me to remove my post as their licensing department has purchased the rights for the translation to exclusive partners and they fear my post could interfere with this.

I have been assured that the article I find so important for English readers to read will be published in translation shortly in a big newspaper/mag, so it will then be possible for the English speaking audience to read the article in it's complete form.

As things stand, I have decided to oblige with their request and remove my recounting of the journey on this blog so as not to interfere with the said republishing process. I am very much interested that the article in translation finds it's way in whole into the English speaking public sphere.

My post was intended to inform and raise awareness of the horrors that happen daily in the Sinai. In this I was agreed with the author, who wanted nothing as much as to stir the world in order for it to wake up and make an effort to finally put an end to these unbelievable atrocities that have cost thousands of African lives in the last years.

(Read my article in the Daily News Egypt on this, and check this blog for further posts on the subject.)


Three quotes from the original article I would like you to read and know.

Of those hostages, who after horrible torture manage to come free, many are arrested by the Egyptian authorities, if they are badly injured, handcuffed to hospital beds, or otherwise thrown into jail. Michael Obert writes on this:

» Because, instead of going after the kidnappers and torturers, the Egyptian authorities go after the victims. «

That is – in addition to the original torture by the kidnappers – a serious crime and, as the representative for the UNHCR in Cairo puts it rightly, "a violation of the Geneva Convention".

The Bedouin guide, who led the journalists to the place were the torture chambers are hidden in houses of Bedouin human traffickers, showed himself outraged:

» "If only one European is abducted somewhere in the Middle East, then the whole world cries out, the media goes crazy and everything is done to rescue the hostage – but with thousands of Africans the world looks away and lets them rot to die."«

And one of the reasons behind this, Michael Obert points out:

» Because the world can't see these people and hardly anyone knows their stories, the kidnappers can torture them unhindered. «

Let us raise awareness where we can so the world starts to 'see' these people who suffer such incredible pain in the darkness of windowless rooms in torture chambers in the Sinai.

It is up to us to make it impossible for the kidnappers to torture them 'unhindered'. It is up to us and up to how much effort we make to put a stop to this, that decides the fate and often decides over the lives of those who fell victim to human trafficking in Sinai.

Theses horrors must come to an end. Once and for all.

Sinai: 8 year old girl is about to be sold to criminals and her mother will be gang-raped before her eyes

The Sinai is a beautiful peninsula piece of desert land situated between the main land of Egypt on the one and the Red Sea and Israel on the other side. It is known for its tourist attractions in the south like the St. Catherine's monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai and the numerous exceptional diving sites at Nuweiba, Dahab or Sharm el-Sheik. Many tourists visit the South Sinai for holidays and marvel at the beauty. But little do they know that only a few hundred kilometres further north human tragedies of an unbelievable volume are happening daily – which tomorrow will cost an 8 year old girl her family and her sanity.

For years with the knowledge – and some suspect the consent – of the Egyptian government human trafficking has been going on in the north-eastern part of the Sinai with Bedouins from the Rashaida tribe holding human refugees hostage, demanding unbelievable sums of money for their release. The hostages, mainly from Eritrea but also from Ethiopia and Sudan, are often kidnapped in the South Sudan after fleeing their violent countries, some kidnapped even right from the UNHCR refugee camps in the region, then transported to the Sinai where they are held in underground locations or buildings housing up to 100 and more. They are subjected to unspeakable torture as the kidnappers try to press ransom money from the hostages relatives. For this purpose the kidnappers hand cell phones to the hostages and force them to call their relatives at home or overseas begging for the enormous sums of money that can reach up to $ 50,000 per person.

To make sure the relatives get the urgency of the matter, the kidnappers torture the victims while they are talking on the phone by beating them or dropping hot melted plastic on their naked bodies. Other hostages are beaten, burnt or even raped in the background to produce the right noise level to intimidate the hostages relatives to extremes. After such horrible phone calls not only are the hostages badly injured and traumatised, their relatives are frightened too and seek to do anything to get their family members out of the hands of these brutal gangsters. This the kidnappers know and have therefore scaled up on the brutality to an extent that is barely possible to believe or describe. The hostages are brutally beaten, burnt, hung up by their feet or hands for days, raped with plastic pipes or even – in the case of the women – hot iron rods. Eric Schwarzt, until 2011 U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, has worked on human rights issues for more than 25 years. But, he says: "I have rarely if ever heard about abuses as dreadful as those perpetrated against migrants by theses smugglers."

These abuses are the bitter reality for 8 year old Ahlam, an Eritrean girl currently held hostage in the Sinai with her father and mother. They all have been subjected to heavy beatings and witnessed the brutal killings of other hostages just this week. The kidnappers demand $ 40,000 ransom payable until tomorrow, Sunday, or they will take bitter revenge. The father will be beaten, as has happened before, more so the kidnappers have announced that the mother will be publicly gang-raped by other hostages forced to undertake this. Forced gang-rapes of female hostages performed by male hostages at gun point occur frequently at these camps. There is no doubt that the mother will be subjected to this horrific crime. To top it all however the kidnappers have announced that, should the ransom not be paid by tomorrow, they will sell 8 year old Ahlam to other kidnapping gangs and forcefully remove her from her parents for ever.

Ahlam knows this, as do her parents. In a telephone call on March 12 to the Swedish-Eritrean radio journalist Meron Estefanos, who regularly keeps phone contacts with the hostages and tries to connect to family who can provide help, both the scared father of Ahlam but also the girl herself have spoken of the horrors that await them tomorrow in the Sinai if the ransom money is not paid. Ahlam told how frightened she was as two male hostages had been brutally murdered that day in front of her eyes – and in response to her crying the kidnappers had grabbed and beat her. The girl was terrified when she spoke of the kidnappers announcement to sell her off on Sunday to other Bedouin gangs.

Estefanos and others engaged in trying to help the horribly abused and often mutilated hostages in the Sinai started a donation campaign on the internet to raise the ransom money so that Ahlam could be saved. Until tonight just around $ 15,000 could be raised, not even half of what the kidnappers demand. Whether this will be enough to at least put the gang-rape of the mother and the selling of Ahlam to other criminals on hold is hard to tell. It must be feared that the kidnappers will do at least the one or the other to heighten the pressure on those that try to raise money for Ahlam and her parents to be released. More than once the demanded ransom was paid but the hostages were not given freedom but passed on to other kidnappers who in turn started to demand money or else would kill the hostages. No one can say what tomorrow will bring for Ahlam and her parents.

Despite the fact that the human trafficking and the horrific abuses of hostages in the thousands has been going on for years, is well documented and known, no Egyptian government to this day has made any attempt to secure the freedom of the people who suffer unbelievably at the hands of these brutal gangs. The reasons are speculated on, but no official indication has ever been given why these human rights violations on such a scale are allowed to go on daily in the Sinai. Fact is that there is no hope of any intervention by army or security forces on behalf of Ahlam, her parents and the many hostages held captive with them in an unknown location in the desert. No one will come to their rescue tomorrow. Their fate is sealed.

While we go to bed tonight looking forward to a bright new Sunday tomorrow, 8 year old Ahlam and her parents will not be able to close their eyes this night, shivering with fear in the knowledge of the horrors that will await them tomorrow. And they know the horrors will come.

Now you know too.

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The original telephone conversation between Merano Estefanos and Ahlam and her parents this week. Listen/read to know what will happen tomorrow in the Sinai, the piece of land everyone loves so much: