NGO urges Egypt and Sudan to tackle trafficking

International human rights organisation Amnesty International has called on Egyptian and Sudanese authorities to make "urgent and concerted efforts" to stop the trafficking of asylum-seekers and refugees from camps in Sudan to Egypt. In a statement, the group claimed it had received repeated reports of brutal violence being used against captives in the Sinai desert, including rape and sexual abuse, beatings, burning and other violent and cruel treatment. Amnesty International added that the victims, primarily Eritrean, were being kidnapped from in and around the Shagarab refugee camps in eastern Sudan, near the Eritrean border - before being trafficked to Egypt’s Sinai desert where Bedouin criminal gangs demanded payments from their families. Claire Beston, Amnesty International’s Eritrea researcher said: "The Egyptian authorities have a duty to protect any individual on their soil, and must urgently take steps to free all people held captive and subjected to appalling abuses in Sinai, and provide them with immediate medical attention and access to asylum procedures and support." The UN has described the growth of the kidnap and people trafficking trades in Sinai as one of the most unreported humanitarian crises in the world. It estimates that 3000 Eritreans alone fled their repressive and impoverished country each month last year.