Sinai’s Valleys of Death

Tourists from the West know Sinai for its desert treks on biblical mountains, pristine beaches, low-cost five star resorts, and the friendly smiles of Bedouin hosts who invite guests for tea and a hookah in tents that conjure Lawrence of Arabia type nostalgia. But to Sigal Rozen, public policy coordinator for the “Hotline for Migrant Workers”, Sinai evokes different associations: “I have heard of valleys in Sinai that reek of death and decay”, she says. Dozens, if not hundreds of Africans are killed here every year. No one keeps track of the exact number of victims. But as one of the few Israelis who care for the more than 1000 Africans who flee to the Jewish state every month, Rozen is updated by eye witness accounts. “Israeli soldiers report shootings taking place near the border on a daily basis”, says Rozen. She knows of more than 100 graves of Africans who managed to cross the border just before they died as they escaped a massive plot of extortion that has become the financial lifeline of Islamists and criminals in the Sinai.

The refugees all tell similar stories of hardship and hope. Habtum and Tsion Gabremadhim got married in Eritrea three years ago. The young couple dreamt of a better future, impossible in this one-party state: “Things are not good back home”, says the 28 year old Tsion, cradling her newborn son. A report by the U.S. State Department from 2010 speaks in blunt language. It mentions “unlawful killings by security forces; torture and beating of prisoners.” Habtum did not want to serve in the army, a dangerous decision in Eritrea: national service evaders bear the full brunt of the authorities’ wrath. The State Department reports “arbitrary arrest and detention of national service evaders and their family members. National service obligations are effectively open-ended. There is no due process and persons remain in jail for years.” Outside the army, people are not free either: “The government was party to forced labor on its citizenry. Children were engaged in forced labor”, the report continues.

Tsion and Habtum started walking north: “We wanted to go to Italy”, says the 32 year old electrician. After five months they had crossed Sudan. At the Libyan border they were arrested by guards who sent to them to a prison in Misrata. “Cells were small and crowded. We received no clean water or medical attention”, says Tsion. Anyone who tried to escape was tortured, usually with beatings on the soles of the feet. The couple was detained for one year. After their release they were supposed to be deported back home. Several times, they tried to reach Europe, but failed. Finally, they opted for an easier way out: “A smuggler promised to take both of us to Israel for 4000 US$”, says Habtum. They raised money from their extended family from all over the world, who wired it to the smuggler. In October 2010, they were set to go. After crossing the Suez Canal in a rowboat they were transferred to pick-up trucks: “We were 17 people in there”, says Tsion, who was soon forced to start walking. Now their journey through the vacation paradise Sinai turned into a trip to hell.

Hell in tourist paradise

“All of a sudden, the smugglers began hitting us. They took everything and locked us in a cellar”, recounts Habtum. The Bedouins demanded an additional 18400 US$ to smuggle the couple across the border. “This is their typical modus operandi” says Rozen, who has heard hundreds of similar accounts. “At any given moment, thousands of Africans are being held in Sinai against their will and are desperate for a way out.” Their stories are reminiscent of slave trade in the 19th century. “The cellar was made up of two rooms. There was no window, no toilet. We were 87 people altogether”, says Habtum, his eyes glistening with tears. The Africans were chained together and were permitted to defecate only once a day into a hole in the floor. “We got one pita bread a day, even the pregnant women”, says Tsion. Once daily, the Bedouins descended into the cellar to apply pressure on their captives: “They call their relatives and torture the people to make them pay”, says Rozen.

“Sometimes they perform mock executions. Once I lost consciousness as they stomped on someone’s face with their army boots”, says Tsion, who was already pregnant at this point. “I thought my baby died inside of me.” “Sometimes, they would just take a woman upstairs. The women never returned. Once they even took a married woman, whose husband was down there with us”, says Habtum, who felt helpless because he was unable to protect his pregnant wife. “Bedouins demand ever larger sums, and it takes more and more time to raise the ransom”, says Rozen. “Therefore, they have more time to rape. Many women are now pregnant by the time they make it to Israel. For them, it means being an outcast in their society henceforth.” Rozen says she has heard about a woman being kept in the area of Al Arish for months: “She simply cannot raise the money to buy freedom.” Contrary to women, men face death if they cannot put up the sums their captor demand: “Two men told them that they had no one to ask for money. They kicked them to death right before our eyes to set an example for the others”, says Habtum. “We thought we would die in that cellar.”

Lucky orphan

Ibrahim Barry seems to have an odd kind of luck. The 21 year old man from Guinea is Muslim, and an orphan. His father died of cancer when Ibrahim was one year old. When he was 13, his mother died after an appendectomy went awry. Ibrahim had no choice: He went to live in the market of his hometown Labe, sleeping at night on the stands for the vegetables he sold during the day. Later, he sold electrical appliances. When he turned 15, his boss made a seemingly generous offer: “He told that he would send me to Israel at his expense, because there one could make good money.” Ibrahim was equipped with 500 US$ and a boarding pass that took him from Conakry, via Morocco to Egypt. “When we reached the desert, they loaded us onto pick-up trucks. Suddenly things started to change”, the young man recalls. “Yalla Yalla! – make haste” the Bedouins shouted. “They started racing through the darkness, most of them armed with AK-47s now.” For two weeks, Ibrahim was kept in a tent, guarded by armed boys his age: “We were told to keep absolutely quiet. The water they gave us was infested with little red worms.” After 13 days, Ibrahim was finally smuggled across the border, where he was picked up by a taxi that took him to Tel Aviv. Lucky for him, the handler who was supposed to pick him up to sell his services as a modern day slave did not show up. “I did not know what to do. It was a shock – I mean, never in my life had I seen so many cars, such high buildings.” After waiting for several hours, Ibrahim began his new life as an illegal migrant worker.

That Ibrahim was not maltreated by the smugglers may be because they knew he was an orphan, or because he is Muslim. The gangs in Sinai have Islamic tendencies and “reserve the worst for Christians”, says Rozen. While the 22.000 Christian Eritreans in Israel report widespread, repeated extortions, few of the 8000 mostly Muslim Sudanese who have fled to the Jewish State do. “Muslims usually have to pay only once”, says Rozen. “Christians were forbidden to pray”, says Habtum, who has decorated his small room in Tel Aviv with icons of Maria. “The Bedouins sometimes invited the Sudanese, who were kept elsewhere, to watch how they beat up Christians and kick their bibles. They stood there, laughed and thought it was amusing.” But Muslim Ibrahim also witnessed racism: “I remember them kicking a Sudanese guy into the face while he was praying and shouting at him: “How dare you pray to Mekka you black dog?!”

Israel as a new home

For Ibrahim, Israel has become a new home. The now 21 year old orphan has become a minor celebrity after he was adopted by an Israeli Jewish family and granted citizenship. Today, he speaks fluent Hebrew and will soon graduate from an officer’s course in the army. He dreams of converting to Judaism and becoming Israel’s ambassador to Guinea. To his friends, he is only known as “Avi”, the abbreviated Hebrew version of his name.
For Habtum and Tsion, citizenship is still a distant dream. Even though their first son Yeffet was born in Tel Aviv several weeks ago, their legal status remains in limbo. They do not know what future holds for them. They are not allowed to work, and have nowhere to go. For the time being, they are content: “At least no one is threatening us here”, says Tsion, baring her breast to feed Yeffet.

The young couple is deeply scarred by their experience. “How can the international community tolerate this and not do a thing about it?” Rozen offers an explanation: “Tsion and Habtum have the misfortune of belonging to a state that does not care about its citizens. On the contrary: many suspect their government is putting its hands on their money this way. Were they Europeans, I am certain that authorities in Egypt would have put an end to this practice a long time ago.”

In 2010, Egypt finally enacted a law against trafficking in persons, but a State Department report from 2011 attests only “modest progress in enforcing” it. Egypt itself “reported only limited law enforcement efforts to enforce its anti-trafficking law, or other laws prohibiting specific forms of trafficking, such as domestic servitude or the sex trafficking of adults or street children”, the report claims. According to refugees, all too often officials are complicit. They tell of policemen who arrest them only to sell them back to smugglers who extort them once more. Little wonder then that the “Trafficking in Persons Report 2011” states that Egypt’s “government did not report any efforts to investigate or punish government officials for complicity in trafficking offenses during the reporting period.” It remains to be seen whether the new “offensive” in Sinai will bring not only government control, but also the rule of law to this peninsula.