Tuesday, 22 February 2011 13:11
Written by Administrator
As part of the uprising in Egypt, some prisons and police stations were opened by the police and the prisoners released. Many of these were not criminals but Eritreans who were imprisoned for immigration offences. Suddenly, after many months, or in some cases up to a year of imprisonment, they were put out on the street, but without any documents or release papers.
Sadly, many were subsequently re-arrested by the army as they had no documentation and are now back in prison. But many others are free in Egypt and are working out what to do.
In Sinai some Eritreans were released by the police and are now in hiding or have escaped to Israel. However, some police stations in the north of the region were attacked by the Bedouin people traffickers under the cover of the uprising. We have heard of eye-witness reports stating that where police stations were found to be holding the 'valuable' Eritreans, these were kidnapped from the stations and taken to the camps to be held for ransom.
Three men recently arrived in Israel have made statements to Hotline for Migrant Workers, an Israeli NGO we work alongside. They actually managed to break out from the camp and free 53 other people. Around twenty of these, though, were recaptured by the Egyptian soldiers. Shockingly, the men report that three women and two men who had just escaped and had been captured by the soldiers, were sold back to the people traffickers by the soldiers.
Life as an Eritrean in Egypt is not getting any better despite the revolution.
