Eritrean asylum seekers trafficked, abused, extorted by network operating in Netherlands
A group of Eritrean human traffickers, who partly operated from the Netherlands, committed large-scale human trafficking, violence, and other atrocities against asylum seekers from Eritrea, according to a study by the National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking. Asylum seekers were locked up in warehouses, starved, extorted, beaten up, sold, or left behind in the desert to die, the investigation shows, NOS reports.
Rapporteur Conny Rijken based the investigation on 124 witness statements in an international criminal investigation by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) into this criminal organization. In almost all cases, the witnesses were Eritrean asylum seekers who paid smugglers to bring them to the Netherlands. Instead, they became victims of human trafficking in Libya.
The victims fled their country looking for prospects for the future, Rijken said. They mostly had to use smugglers because they did not have the documents needed to travel legally. The human traffickers took them to Libya, where they locked them up in warehouses with too many people in too small a space and with no sanitary facilities. The traffickers subjected the victims to physical and verbal violence, gave them little food and drink, and forced the victims to call family members to transfer more money.
“Some victims were beaten with garden hoses. These hoses were made wet, which is more painful. Some witnesses state that people were injured and left behind in the desert to die,” Rijken said. It is unknown how many people died.
Some victims had to perform work in the warehouses for the traffickers, ranging from preparing food to abusing other asylum seekers. Many were abducted or sold during their stay in Libya, sometimes multiple times, after which they had to pay again for their release.
The OM suspects seven men of operating this human trafficking network. The two main suspects ran reception camps in Libya - Walid, who is currently on trial in the Netherlands, and Kidane, who will soon be extradited by the United Arab Emirates, the OM told NOS. The other five are suspected of organizing extortion and money flows in the Netherlands. Many of the victims already had family in the Netherlands and the suspects visited them at home to extort money from them.
