http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/11/30/human-smugglers-exploiters.html
Human smugglers: Exploiters or pioneers of new
underground railroad?
Typically described as ruthless, traffickers are perceived by some African
refugees in Sudan as freedom facilitators
November 30, 2014 5:00AM ET
by James Jeffrey & Milena Belloni
KHARTOUM, Sudan — American rapper Lil Wayne’s lyrics resounded in the
minivan as a group of human smugglers sped through the night in Sudan’s
capital, Khartoum.
“We are going to get the people from the store” said Michael, who had just
received a call from a driver taking refugees from Shagarab — a refugee
camp in Kassala, a state in eastern Sudan — to Khartoum. The next step was
to keep the refugees safe and hidden until another driver would take them
to Tripoli in Libya.
It was just a normal night for 24-year-old Michael, looking clean cut in
smart clothes, with slick hair and smelling of nice aftershave, and his two
assistant samsara, the local Arabic term for human smugglers, who work at
night and sleep off the long hours — as well as the whiskey, cigarettes and
hashish — the next day.
Michael, who did not want to be known by his real name out of fear for his
safety, used to smuggle in his home country, Eritrea, before fleeing to
Sudan, where he continues doing what he knows best. After one year in
Khartoum, he controls a significant amount of money and works a network of
contacts. This includes guides who lead people out of Eritrea, others who
transfer refugees from Ethiopia to Sudan and yet more who drive them
through the Sahara to Libya.
Sudan hosts a refugee population of about 160,000, which rises to over 2
million when internally displaced people and asylum seekers are included,
according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
This makes Sudan a major refugee hub in East Africa and a major way station
for those hoping to reach other destinations. Neighboring Ethiopia has the
most in Africa.
Developing countries host 86 percent of the world’s refugees, according to
the 2013 UNHCR Global Trends report. Often these countries already struggle
to respond to the needs of their own populations and are reluctant to allow
refugees to study, work or move freely in their territories.
Meanwhile, only a few developed countries, such as the U.S., Canada,
Australia and a few Scandinavian countries, provide effective refugee
resettlement programs. In 2013 only 98,400 individuals — fewer than 1
percent of refugees worldwide — were allowed to move from refugee camps to
developed countries.
During 2013, smugglers moved about 150,000 refugees through the
Mediterranean alone, a figure based on the number of people assisted by the
Italian navy. Yet this represents only a small fraction of the actual
number smuggled into Europe and other countries.
Smugglers are not the cause of refugees’ problems, argues a variety of
scholars, such as Hein de Haas, a co-director of the International
Migration Institute, and Nando Sigona, a senior research officer at the
U.K. Refugee Studies Centre. Rather, they are simply responding to demand
for geographic mobility created by increasing inequality among countries
and by the surge of policy obstacles against the movement of people from
developing countries.
Against this background, it is not surprising that many Eritrean refugees
in Khartoum view smugglers as facilitators rather than exploiters.
“Smugglers could be compared to those individuals who helped black people
during slavery moving from the South to the North in the U.S. and today are
considered heroes,” said Eritrean refugee Yohannes, who, like other
refugees in this story, did not want his real name used our of fear of the
authorities. "Who knows? Maybe one day smugglers will be considered heroes
too because they helped people find freedom.”
But there exists a type of smuggler who is anything but a hero. Michael
pointed out flashy restaurants offering Middle Eastern cuisine at the side
of the popular road the minivan was on. “These are the shops of the
killers,” he said.
Michael’s “killers” are human traffickers who in this part of Africa have
become infamous for selling refugees to ruthless gangs operating in the
Sinai Desert. The telephoned cries of tortured refugees are used to
convince families abroad to pay ransoms of thousands of dollars.
“They sell our people like beasts.” Michael said. “I am a samsari, but I
have humanity. Eritreans are my people, my family. I take responsibility
for them.”
Whether such sentiment comes more from moral code than market forces is
debatable. Potential customers make their choices based on an evaluation of
the smuggler’s efficiency and reliability. “I know one samsari — he is a
very nice guy. He never lost a man,” said Mebrahtu, another Eritrean
refugee in Khartoum. “He has experience and fair prices.”
Eritrean refugee
Most of Michael’s customers are Eritreans, Somalis and Ethiopians who,
after fleeing poverty, violence and lack of freedom in their countries,
reached a Sudanese or an Ethiopian refugee camp but did not want to stay
there. They are usually young, often highly skilled, entrepreneurial. What
many say they find unbearable is the hopelessness of their situation, which
stems from an international asylum system structured around the assumption
most conflicts are short-term and refugees will eventually be able to
return to their homes. The reality is often quite different. Rather than
emergencies, it is chronic political and economic crises in Afghanistan,
Somalia, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine, Myanmar and
Eritrea that fuel primary global refugee flows, according to the 2013 UNHCR
Global Trend report.
Such is the scale and diversity of challenges faced by refugees that
distinctions between genuine refugees and economic migrants become blurred.
Having no passport and coming from countries often labeled high risk for
illegal migration, refugees find themselves cut off from obtaining study
visas and work permits for developed countries, condemned by strict
national migration rules to remain as refugees for years that turn to
decades.
There is an alternative: Contact a professional in the irregular migration
industry, like Michael. For $1,600, a refugee is moved from an Ethiopian
camp to Khartoum and for another $1,600, taken to Tripoli. Libyan smugglers
will organize a move to Italy for $1,000 more.
Prices aren’t fixed and vary depending on demand, availability of resources
and transport and risks involved. Usually the higher the cost, the higher
the level of safety and comfort of the journey.
Fake marriages with a resident in the U.S. or Europe cost the most to
arrange —about $15,000 — but are the safest way to leave Sudan. A visa to
fly to Turkey and from there try to get to Europe is another relatively
safe option — avoiding a sea journey — costing about $10,000. But most
refugees can’t afford such luxuries.
Even the most efficient and good-hearted smuggler can offer no guarantees
during cheap, dangerous journeys through the Sahara and the Mediterranean.
>From November 2013 to November 2014, 3,000 migrants died trying to cross
the Mediterranean, according to a recent report released by the
International Organization for Migration. And since 2000, 40,000 migrants
perished crossing borders globally.
When deaths occur, however, smugglers are typically deemed less culpable
than destination nation-states, in the eyes of many refugees.
“It is the fault of European nations,” said Gaim, an Eritrean refugee in
Addis Ababa, referring to the 366 Eritreans who died when a boat sank off
the coast of Lampedusa in the fall of 2013. “Many of them applied for
family reunification visas, but they got their applications rejected. That
is why they left. That is why they died.”
Received on Sun Nov 30 2014 - 16:12:20 EST