ICERAS

Eritrean asylum seekers in eastern Sudanese refugee camps used to face excessive violence by the Sudanese police, and by human trafficking gangs who raid the camps to kidnap refugees. New developments have made their life even worse.

The international community and Khartoum should intervene to reverse the increasingly widening area of human trafficking in eastern Sudan and mistreatment of Eritrean asylum seekers in the country, the New York-based African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) said in a report on Friday.

According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), the estimated number of Eritreans who enter the Sudan every month via these border crossings is about 2,500. Other UNHCR statistics put the number of Eritrean refugees in camps in Eastern Sudan (those fleeing compulsory conscription back home or looking for better opportunities elsewhere) to 2,000 monthly. Many of those refugees are smuggled into Khartoum, the Middle East, or Europe. readmore