BEING ERITREAN IN 2013

Refugees’ Odyssey without rights in the desert of Sinai

(by Eden Zeriun G)

The Italian television’s channel RAI 1, on the morning of January 2 2013 at 8.30 broadcasted an interview with doctor Alganesh Fesseha CEO of the Gandhi NGO in Milan. The NGO was founded by a group of Africans (doctors, university professors, private business women and men) with the aim "to improve public sensibility towards the problem of abandoning of children and of teenagers and the hardship of women regarding gender issues” as doctor Fesseha says herself. Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast and Sudan are some of the countries where they are intervening with their improvement projects and assistance.

The other guest of the show was Lula Techlehaymanot, cultural and linguistic mediator, human rights activist and actress in the recently finished “Ainom”. The film is about an Eritrean refugee woman that undergoes hardships and abuse by her employer, in order to reunite her family in Italy.

During the interview some facts have come to the light. Facts of the shocking number of immigrants. Information also about the human trafficking and forced labor. The number and facts indicate that 3% of the planet’s population are migrants. Thousands of people migrating from one side to the other of the globe, most of the tie in total absence of their rights. This interview has cover the topic of violence and restrains of these human beings being held hostage in desert of Sinai, obliged to pay sums up to 60,000$ for their freedom, if not they are used as hard labor or their organs are exported illegally to be then sold in organ trafficking market. Not to mention the situation of slavery under which they are obliged to work, the physical and sexual abuse the women are suffering is indefinable. All this is to reach Israel. Where they are unaware, but what awaits them is more discrimination, racist attacks and exploitation to further misery and inhumane treatment living in total illegality.

More facts and numbers:

• 1000 hostages are at the present detained by the Bedouin tribes men often helped by other Eritreans, Ethiopians and Sudanese who’s aim is to gain money through this inhumane “business”.
• 3000 are the people killed between 2009 and 2014.
• 4000 the minors that have disappeared from the refugee camps in Sudan. Kidnapped and most probably have enriched most sadly the human trafficking system.

The Eritreans and Ethiopians that try to reach Egypt and then Israel often hire someone to guide them, and most of the time they turn out to be in business with the kidnappers and so making profit on the hopeful travelers. Most of these innocent people end up in the Egyptian prisons and are often saved from there by NGOs like Gandhi through lots of effort says doctor Fesseha. Up to now they have been able to free 750 prisoners.

The NGO Gandhi tries to create awareness the western world including the Eritreans and Ethiopian that are aware but do nothing to show their support. There must be more demonstration to fight these atrocities that these thousands of people are going through.

A great number of these refugees that receive shelter in the refugee camps in Sudan are women. And when they are kidnapped they have an additional risk: they are subject to gang rape, over and over. They turn out then often pregnant. Pregnant of children that are the fruit of rape and violence.

Women that are tricked by the guides that were supposed to help them cross borders, they often hand them over to the Bedouins that will do as they please with them if they don’t obtain the money asked in ransom. Raped, beaten and tortured. What will they tell these children that are born of such a violent act? Who will they say are the fathers? They will be born to be children of none.

Doctor Fesseha concludes the interview by sending the appeal to Italian authorities in specific and the EU and the International Authorities and community to intervene and come to the rescue of these Women man and the children that are suffering the consequences of the general silence that has been going on for over 10 years. Humanity is being put on a stand and we await for a solution. It is the beginning of a new year. The wish is that it is the year of the awaking of a higher sensibility towards humanitarian crisis such as this. The rage of the women leaving in the western world in knowing of the violence other women are undergoing.

Let’s not forget that those people have left hove only to fulfill a dream we all have of a better life. A more serene life. A fair life in a democratic society.

Knowing this the question that arises is if the declaration of human rights really refers to all human being on earth. Is it really so universal? There is the urgent need to make it so.

So the wish is that this appeal that doctor Fesseha sent to the international community ant the Italian authorities is collected and a real humanitarian action to be made by those that have the authority to make these sufferings disappear without any extreme effort from their side.It is time for action.

Sources:

• Alganesh Fesseha
• Lula Teclehaimanot
• Gruppo Sos Sinai
• Rai uno.
• Al Arabia
• Ong Gandhi-Milano

for more info on NGO Gandhi: http://www.asefasc.org/