Ethiopian authorities have arrested a "dangerous international human trafficker" alongside nine of his accomplices. The gang is accused of holding more than 3,000 people captive in Libya. Some of the victims are believed to have been severely tortured, routinely raped -- or even killed and discarded.
The French Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency reported earlier this week that, according to a document issued by the Ethiopian Federal Police, ten members of an international trafficking ring — including a suspected leader — have been arrested in the Ethiopian town of Shire, located in the country's restive northern Tigray region, which borders Eritrea and Sudan. Three of the suspects were reported to be women.
The suspects were taken to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on April 6. It is unclear at this point whether they will stand trial in Ethiopia or whether they might be extradited to be tried in another jurisdiction, where they might be wanted.
Officials said that "some of them could be transferred on the basis of the criminal exchange agreement with other countries."
Over nearly a decade, the criminal gang had reportedly attracted "many young people from Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya, and Somalia" whom they would take to Libya under the pretence of aiming to help organize their onward migration to Europe.
Once the migrants found themselves stuck in Libya, the would-be migrants "were held hostage in warehouses" by the ruthless group of traffickers who, according to police statements, would demand "large sums of money" from their families — just to be spared from various methods of torture.
Ethiopian officials estimate the number of their victims to have surpassed 3,000 people over the years, adding that they are believed to have "killed more than 100 people and raped more than 50 women."
These criminal activities of the brutal trafficking ring are believed to have generated more than the equivalent of 16 million euros for the network, according to the police; the bank accounts of the ringleader and his accomplices have now been frozen and assets belonging to the group have been confiscated.
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Gruesome torture methods as a business model
Going into graphic detail, authorities added that some of those held against their will in Libya would -- among other methods of torture -- be burned with melted plastic from bottles, stressing that the "inhuman acts committed caused the loss of many lives, as well as serious physical (...) and severe psychological trauma."
Those whose relatives did not pay up would only be given "one meagre meal a day, were beaten and whipped with rubber or electrical cables, and had their hands and feet chained," Ethiopian authorities further clarified.
Many women were reportedly subjected to sexual violence, resulting in longterm physical and psychological injuries.
Additional reporting by the BBC said that the leader of the group had been operating five such torture warehouses in Libya.
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International collaboration
The years-long investigation was made possible with the support of Interpol's Regional Operational Centre (ROCK) Project -- an EU-funded initiative designed to assist national police forces in multiple East African countries with dismantling smuggling and trafficking networks
This particular criminal group had been under investigation since 2018, with ROCK providing information on trafficking routes and networks associated with the gang and its collaborators for multiple years in the lead-up to the arrests; according to Ethiopian police sources, the gang is believed to have been in operation since 2010, focusing mainly on attracting young would-be migrants.
As part of the operation, authorities have collected statements from more than 100 relatives of victims, not only in Ethiopia but also in Libya, Sudan, Canada, and several European nations.
The breakthrough of the recent arrests has also enabled Ethiopian authorities to identify more than 70 major human traffickers in Ethiopia and other countries in total.
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with AFP
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