From the UN Monitoring Report: Human smuggling and trafficking in Eritrea 2011

The UN Report: Human smuggling and trafficking in Eritrea

Human smuggling and trafficking

Posted at FB July 2011

General Teklai Kifle “Manjus” and Mabrouk Mubarak Salim*, the current Minister of State for
Transport of the Sudan are  identified as main collaborators in the UN Report:

362. An Eritrean source, who claims to have long been engaged in people
smuggling activities on behalf of General Teklai Kifle “Manjus” , told the Monitoring
Group that he was first deployed into Egypt in a convoy
carrying weapons in 2008. According to the source, his contacts confirm that
Eritrean agents based in Egypt were continuing to coordinate routine trafficking of
people and arms via Sinai in 2011.

421. The well-documented exodus of young Eritreans to escape poverty or
obligatory “national service” represents yet another opportunity for corruption and
illicit revenue. People smuggling is so pervasive that it could not be possible
without the complicity of Government and party officials, especially military
officers working in the western border zone, which is headed by General Teklai
Kifle “Manjus”. Multiple sources have described to the Monitoring Group how
Eritrean officials collaborate with ethnic Rashaida smugglers to move their human
cargo through the Sudan into Egypt and beyond. This is in most respects the same
network involved in smuggling weapons through to Sinai and into Gaza.358
422. According to former Eritrean military officials and international human rights
activists, military officers involved in the practice charge roughly $3,000 a head for
each person exiting Eritrea. Eritreans seeking to leave the country illegally (i.e.
without an exit visa), and who can afford to pay these fees, often choose to do so
rather than risk imprisonment.

*Mubarak Salim, the current Minister of State for Transport of the Sudan is also a wealthy merchant and former leader of the now defunct “Free Lions” rebel group that once formed part of the Sudanese “Eastern Front” opposition alliance supported by Eritrea. Salim, an ethnic Rashaida, works closely with other well-established Rashaida smugglers, who operate with the full knowledge of Government officials on both sides of the border.