Sudanese security says foiled people-smuggling operation on Red Sea

15 JUNE 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) Tuesday said it has foiled people-smuggling operation via the Red Sea coast in Port Sudan pointing that two suspects were arrested.

Saudi men rest along the beach overlooking the Red Sea - (Photo Reuters/Susan Baaghil)

Sudan is considered as an origin as well as transit region for the illegal migrants and human trafficking. Thousands of people from Eritrea and Ethiopia are monthly crossing the border into the Sudanese territories on their way to Europe through Libya or Egypt.

The Sudan Media Center, a website closely linked to the country’s intelligence circles, quoted a well-informed security source as saying that the NISS had foiled the smuggling of 22 people to a neighbouring country through the Sudanese coast on the Red Sea.

He said that a maritime security force had busted the boat which was waiting to load the illegal migrants at Danganab area after it received information about a people-smuggling operation to a neighbouring country.

The same source stressed that two suspects were arrested, pointing that the boat belongs to fish trader in Port Sudan.

He said that the illegal migrants confessed that the smuggling operation is carried out by several people belonging to one of Eastern Sudan’s tribes at Al-Shagar area in the sea port of Sawakin, saying they charge each passenger between 2000 to 9000 Sudanese pounds (SDG) (about $150-$640).

He added that the suspects have been handed over to the police to take the legal action against them.

Last week, Sudan, Italy and the United Kingdom said they arrested in Khartoum an Eritrean man suspected of controlling one of the world’s four largest criminal migrant trafficking organizations.

In January 2014, the Sudanese parliament approved an anti-human trafficking law which punishes those involved with human trafficking with up to 20 years imprisonment.

Also, in 2014, Khartoum hosted a conference on human trafficking in the Horn of Africa, organised by the African Union (AU), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Sudanese government.

15 countries and European Union representatives attended the meeting, during which a joint strategy and action plan to combat human trafficking was adopted.