People Traffickers Stalk Eritreans in Sudan Desert - Beserat.com

People Traffickers Stalk Eritreans in Sudan DesertIan Timberlake | January 14, 2012A refugee waits at a clinic during a visit by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres tothe Shagarab Eritrean Refugees camp at Kassala in East Sudan. (Reuters Photo)Shagarab Refugee Camp. Moving at night through the cold, flat desert,armed people smugglers are exploiting, abducting and sometimes killingEritreans fleeing their authoritarian homeland, the UN and refugees say.“People catch us, sell us like a goat,” one Eritrean asylum-seeker said ofthe human traffickers.Like others who have reached this wind-blown collection of shelters insidethe Sudanese border, he accused the local Rashaida tribe of involvement inthe people trade, which the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) ishoping to counter through a $2-million effort to support local police andimprove camp security.“These groups that are involved in this are heavily armed. We hear offirefights between government forces and these armed groups,” said FelixRoss, the UNHCR’s senior protection officer in Sudan’s eastern region.He told AFP the problem has emerged over the past two or three years,with the UNHCR hearing of at least 20 kidnapping cases a month.“But we believe that the number itself is much higher,” Ross said.On a visit to the Shagarab camp on Thursday, the UN High Commissionerfor Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said a global criminal network of smugglersand kidnappers is “taking profit of the desperate situation of manyEritreans.”Shagarab camp receives about 2,000 asylum-seekers monthly, largely fromneighboring Eritrea where many have fled compulsory military service.