(ANS - Rome) - “Every human being - man, woman, boy, girl - is the image of God. (...) That is why we declare in the name of all people and of everyone of our own Creed that modern slavery  in the form of human trafficking, forced labour, prostitution or the trafficking of organs - is a crime “against humanity”." So said Pope Francis on December 2nd, at the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders against slavery. Yet in North Africa hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war, poverty and discrimination, are treated without any respect for their dignity.

The news that keeps coming to Fr Mussie Zerai, Director of Habeshia, and his staff is terrible. The refugees themselves or their family members tell the story. They talk about kidnappings, extortion, beatings, torture and constant violence. Women and men are treated as of no value – as slaves and human objects available to all, often kept alive only because they can still be traded and sold. They are like goods on which money can be made.

Often the refugees, who are mostly from the Horn of Africa, are the victims of pre-planned ambushes while they are fleeing in desperation to Libya, to seek passage to Europe. The criminal gangs who kidnap them begin immediately to wreak violence, beating them at random, just to make an example of them and stave off any attempt at resistance. Then the blackmail phone calls to the family begin, often while the victims are being tortured, so that their screams of pain make the demand for money more "effective".

Every refugee has to pay his captors several thousand dollars for transportation by land through the Sahara, and then by sea. Those who cannot pay the full amount have no hope of escape. They are beaten almost every day.

It does not follow that those who pay are more fortunate. Fr Zerai says, "We have news from Tripoli that on the Libyan coast there are about 2,500 Eritreans and Ethiopians and as many Somalis and Sudanese crowded into sheds. They have already paid for the 'ticket' for a place on a boat, any boat.  They will definitely be embarking in the coming days, regardless of the conditions of sea and weather. Everything will depend probably on the need to make space in the sheds where those poor people are locked up, for others like them who are also desperate. The risk of dying in the Mediterranean continues to grow. "

More information is available on the website of Habeshia.

Published 06/03/2015