Torture, Rape and Murder of Eritreans in the Sinai Desert
P.O.Box 36199 Tel: +44 (0)7958 005637
London SW7 5WS Fax: +44 (0)20 7584 9272
United Kingdom E-mail: hrc_e@yahoo.co.uk
www.hrc-eritrea.org
HE Mr Hatem Seif El Nasr
Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt in the U.K
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt
26 South Street
London W1K 1DW
United Kingdom
Via email: egtamboff@gmail.com
C.c: Mr Antonio Guterres (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) guterres@unhcr.org
7 March 2011
Dear Ambassador,
Re: Torture, Rape and Murder of Eritreans in the Sinai Desert
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea, a London base Human Rights Organisation has been receiving calls of distress from Eritreans who have been kidnapped from refugee camps in Sudan and from the border while they are attempting to flee persecution in their own country and are being held hostage for ransom in the Sinai Desert.
During this ordeal, they have been raped, starved, tortured, mutilated, and murdered. One who died last week in a group of twenty-nine, was cut into pieces in front of the others and a warning of what would happen if the ransom was not paid; another called Daniel, had his kidneys removed while he was still alive and unanaesthetised then killed in front of the others. One killed himself from grief and shock.
The relatives of those remaining, those who have relative in diaspora are not immediately killed, and are given 48 hours to raise $20,000 each. Meanwhile, these Eritrean refugees, terrorised on an hourly basis, are kept chained to each other by the feet underground in a secret location somewhere in the Sinai Desert.
We are writing to you because these people have no government to come to their rescue, since they were attempting to escape another kind of tyranny before they ended up in this fresh hell.
Since the crime is committed on Egyptian soil, it falls to the Egyptian authorities to stop it, end it, and prevent it from happening again.
This has been going on for at least a year as if it were simple business as usual. How can the Egyptian government continue to turn a blind eye to these atrocities, especially now when the eyes of the whole world are upon it?
Some of the desperate people who managed to communicate with us do not expect to continue to live. They want at least to give their names so that their families might know what became of them.
Attached, you will find documentation and evidence of the evil-doing by so-called humans.
As Egypt is also a signatory to the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and Trafficking in Persons and as the Eritreans will not be helped by the Isaias Afewerki dictatorship they are fleeing from, we beseech you to stop ignoring the inhuman brutality and murdering that is happening right now in your country.
Yours respectfully
E.Chyrum
Elizabeth Chyrum
Director
