'Dangerous international trafficker’ arrested by Ethiopia

Ethiopian police said they arrested a ‘dangerous international human trafficker’ and nine accomplices accused of smuggling over 3 000 people to Libya, where they were held hostage and, in some cases, tortured, raped, or killed, reports africanews. The human trafficking network has been under investigation since 2018, police said. They recruited young people from Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia who hoped to migrate to Europe through Libya. The ring operated five warehouses in Libya, holding victims hostage while forcing their families to pay huge ransoms. Those who could not pay were given only one meagre meal a day, beaten, whipped with rubber or electric cables, and had their hands and feet chained, police added. Some victims were burned with plastic water bottles, women were raped, and many died during the torture. The Ethiopian federal police, with support from Project ROCK, an EU-funded Interpol initiative, interviewed over 100 victims and their families during the investigation. They found that the network moved around $20m through its operations. Police said the probe had also uncovered more than 70 major human traffickers in Ethiopia and abroad.