Sudan’s FM accuses Egypt’s spy agency of aiding Cairo-based rebels

Sudan’s FM accuses Egypt’s spy agency of aiding Cairo-based rebels

The Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti accused the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (GID) of sponsoring anti-Khartoum rebels who are residing in Cairo despite repeated complaints by his government.

“[Egypt] does not remember hundreds of opposition [members] who belong to armed groups bearing arms [against the government] and have safe premises sponsored by security and intelligence service and sponsored by the state and have full rights to hold seminars and adopt political positions,” Karti told al-Sudani newspaper in an interview.

“We urged them [Cairo] dozens of times and they asked us for names [of rebel figures]. We wrote [provided to them] hundreds of names and repeated it dozens of times and [ambassador] Kamal Hassan Ali knows this file completely. They even demanded from us their sites [where opposition members are staying] and we identified these villas and apartments in which they reside. We are fully aware of who in the [Egyptian] intelligence agencies dealing with them” he added.

The Sudanese top diplomat emphasised that they will not reciprocate and denied hosting any Egyptian opposition figures from the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Sudan has always been respectful of the political situation in Egypt, and we declared over and over that we will not be a launch pad for any damages towards Egypt and in fact Sudan is free of any of the symbols of the Egyptian opposition” he said.

 

Karti suggested that Cairo is retaliating for Khartoum’s supportive position of Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam.

“There are pressures on us. The Egyptian interior minister says they are facing a security threat from the south. Which south is he referring to?” he said.

Cairo was irked by Khartoum’s support of Ethiopia’s plan to build the Renaissance dam which Egypt argues will impact its Nile water share needed for its population of 90 million.

Furthermore, Sudan’s Islamist government has appeared uncomfortable with the recent developments in Egypt given the common ideology they shared with Egypt’s ex-president Mohamed Morsi and the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) which brought him to power.

Karti also acknowledged tensions with Arab Gulf states of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over relations with Iran and presumption that Sudan backs the International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We said that we have nothing to do with the International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, and they were unable to bring Sudan to their side. Sudan was the last state that Morsi has visited,” he said.

He criticised local media and even the Sudanese army for overstating the issue of docking of Iranian warships in Port Sudan which appeared to concern these countries.

Karti also denied that Sudan is an issue of dispute between Qatar and its neighbors.

A diplomatic fallout occurred between Qatar and other Gulf states, including UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain after they accused Doha of failing to abide by an accord not to interfere in each others’ internal affairs.

The three Gulf states are believed to be angry at Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement whose ideology challenges the principle of conservative dynastic rule long dominant in the Gulf.

A source close to Qatar’s government told Reuters last March that the dispute had more to do with issues in the wider Middle East such as the crises in Egypt and Syria, than about matters affecting fellow Gulf states.

Qatar is one of the main political and economic backers of Sudan’s Islamist government and has hosted Darfur peace talks which resulted in a peace accord signed in 2011 known as the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) between Khartoum and Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) headed by Tijani el-Sissi.

Source Sudan Tribune

 

Ethiopia: Christian in Sudan sentenced to death for faith

(CNN) — Hours after a Sudanese court sentenced his pregnant wife to death when she refused to recant her Christian faith, her husband told CNN he feels helpless.

“I’m so frustrated. I don’t know what to do,” Daniel Wani told CNN on Thursday. “I’m just praying.”

This week a Khartoum court convicted his wife, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27, of apostasy, or the renunciation of faith.

Ibrahim is Christian, her husband said. But the court considers her to be Muslim.

The court also convicted her of adultery and sentenced her to 100 lashes because her marriage to a Christian man is considered void under Sharia law.

The court gave her until Thursday to recant her Christian faith — something she refused to do, according to her lawyer.

During Thursday’s sentencing hearing, a sheikh told the court “how dangerous a crime like this is to Islam and the Islamic community,” said attorney Mohamed Jar Elnabi, who’s representing Ibrahim.

“I am a Christian,” Ibrahim fired back, “and I will remain a Christian.”

Her legal team says it plans to appeal the verdict, which drew swift condemnation from human rights organizations around the world.

In the meantime, Ibrahim, who is eight months’ pregnant, remains in prison with her 20-month-old son.

“She is very strong and very firm. She is very clear that she is a Christian and that she will get out one day,” Elnabi told CNN from Sudan.

Ibrahim was born to a Sudanese Muslim father and an Ethiopian Orthodox mother. Her father left when she was 6 years old, and Ibrahim was raised by her mother as a Christian.

However, because her father was Muslim, the courts considered her to be the same, which would mean her marriage to a non-Muslim man is void.

The case, her lawyer said, started after Ibrahim’s brother filed a complaint against her, alleging that she had gone missing for several years and that her family was shocked to find she had married a Christian man.

A family divided

The court’s ruling leaves a family divided, with Ibrahim behind bars and her husband struggling to survive, Elnabi said.

Police blocked Wani from entering the courtroom on Thursday, Elnabi said. Lawyers appealed to the judge, but he refused, Elnabi said.

Wani uses a wheelchair and “totally depends on her for all details of his life,” Elnabi said.

“He cannot live without her,” said the lawyer.

The couple’s son is having a difficult time in prison.

“He is very affected from being trapped inside a prison from such a young age,” Elnabi said. “He is always getting sick due to lack of hygiene and bugs.”

Ibrahim is having a difficult pregnancy, the lawyer said. A request to send her to a private hospital was denied “due to security measures.”

There also is the question of the timing of a potential execution.

In past cases involving pregnant or nursing women, the Sudanese government waited until the mother weaned her child before executing any sentence, said Christian Solidarity Worldwide spokeswoman Kiri Kankhwende.

Rights groups, governments ask forcompassion

Amnesty International describes Ibrahim as a prisoner of conscience.

“The fact that a woman could be sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion, is abhorrent and should never be even considered,” Manar Idriss, Amnesty International’s Sudan researcher, said in a statement.

“‘Adultery’ and ‘apostasy’ are acts which should not be considered crimes at all, let alone meet the international standard of ‘most serious crimes’ in relation to the death penalty. It is a flagrant breach of international human rights law,” the researcher said.

Katherine Perks with the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies said the verdict goes against Sudan’s “own Constitution and commitments made under regional and international law.”

“Meriam has been convicted solely on account of her religious convictions and personal status,” she said.

Foreign embassies in Khartoum are urging the government there to reverse course.

“We call upon the Government of Sudan to respect the right to freedom of religion, including one’s right to change one’s faith or beliefs, a right which is enshrined in international human rights law as well as in Sudan’s own 2005 Interim Constitution,” the embassies of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Netherlands said in a statement.

“We further urge Sudanese legal authorities to approach Ms. Meriam’s case with justice and compassion that is in keeping with the values of the Sudanese people,” it read.

‘Egregious violations of freedom of religion‘

Attempts to contact Sudan’s justice minister and foreign affairs minister about the Ibrahim case were unsuccessful.

Sudan is one of the most difficult countries in the world to be a Christian, according to international religious freedom monitors.

Under President Omar al-Bashir, the African nation “continues to engage in systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief,” the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in its 2014 report.

The country imposes Sharia law on Muslims and non-Muslims alike and punishes acts of “indecency” and “immorality” by floggings and amputations, the commission said.

“Conversion from Islam is a crime punishable by death, suspected converts to Christianity face societal pressures, and government security personnel intimidate and sometimes torture those suspected of conversion,” said the commission, whose members are appointed by Congress and the president.

The Sudanese government has arrested Christians for spreading their faith, razed Christian churches and confiscated Christians’ property, the commission said.

Since 1999, the U.S. State Department has called Sudan one of the worst offenders of religious rights, counting it among eight “countries of particular concern.”

“The government at times enforced laws against blasphemy and defaming Islam,” the State Department said in its most recent report on religious freedom, from 2012.

The State Department’s other countries of concern, all of which impose strict penalties on Christians or other faiths, are: Myanmar (also known as Burma), China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.

Among all religious groups, Christians are the most likely to be persecuted worldwide, according to a 2014 report by the Pew Research Center.

Between June 2006 and December 2012, Christians were harassed by governments in 151 countries, Pew reported. Islam was second, with 135 countries. Together, Christians and Muslims make up half of the world’s population, Pew noted.

Lawyer says he’s gotten a death threat

Elnabi says he got a death threat a day before the controversial court hearing, with an anonymous caller telling him to pull out of representing Ibrahim or risk attack.

“I feel very scared,” he said. “Since yesterday, I live in fear if I just hear a door open or a strange sound in the street.”

Still, the lawyer said he’ll continue representing Ibrahim.

“I could never leave the case. This is a matter of belief and principles,” he said. “I must help someone who is in need, even if it will cost me my life.

Sudan plans to supply Ethiopian Electricity to Eritrea

Djibouti (HAN) May 10, 2014,  Sudan plans to supply neighbouring Eritrea with electricity, just months after Khartoum said it would buy power from Eritrea’s rival Ethiopia.  Sudan would initially buy 100 megawatts from Ethiopian electricity DAM. Eritrea is one of the world’s poorest nations, according to the UN Human development index.

The president of Eritrea and President Omar al-Bashir visited a key economic sites in Sudan. “I have come here to follow up a number of issues that concern our two countries,” Afwerki told reporters at Khartoum airport upon departure back to Eritrea.

Ethiopia is building the 6,000-megawatt Grand Renaissance hydro development which will be Africa’s largest when finished in 2017. In December, 2014 Sudan and Ethiopia inaugurated a cross-border electricity link to empower regional electricity companies, such as Eritrea, Egypt, Djibouti, Somalia and South Sudan.

The Sudanese Electricity Transmission Company has begun work on a 45-kilometre (28-mile) line between eastern Sudan’s Kassala state to Teseney, just over the border in Eritrea..

The announcement came during the second day of an official visit to Khartoum by Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki.

Issaias and his Sudanese counterpart Omar Al-Bashir discussed economic cooperation “especially with regard to the electricity power linkage”, SUNA reported earlier.

 

Salih Abdalla, director of the Operation Department of Sudan’s Electricity Corporation, said that the corporation has actually started implementation of the two presidents’ directives with regard to the electric linkage between Sudan and Eritrea.

He added that the Eritrean president’s visit would boost economic cooperation between the two countries in addition to the cooperation in fields of joint programs and capacity building.

Sudan tries to maintain a balanced relationship between Eritrea and its enemy number Ethiopia.
Bashir and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn opened a 321-kilometre line between Gedaref power station and Ethiopia’s Amhara state, news agencies  reported.

Meanwhile: The Eritrean group of 30 was arrested near the Libyan border in early February and held for three months without charge and without access to the United Nations
Because of Isyass visist, Eritrea oppossition say the number deported are morethan 45 Eritreans, including at least six registered as refugees, back to their homeland where they risk detention and abuse

Picture: Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki shakes hands with officials next to his Sudanese counter part Omar Al-Bashir  at Khartoum airport.  Ashraf Shazly, Khartoum, Sudan

– See more at: http://www.geeskaafrika.com/eritrea-sudan-plans-to-supply-ethiopian-electricity-to-asmara/3130/#sthash.Hpbl7AaS.dpuf

Egyptian satellite to monitor construction of Ethiopia’s disputed dam

A new Egyptian satellite will track the construction of an Ethiopian hydroelectric dam over which officials in Cairo and Addis Ababa have been locked in a standoff over fears that the project will hinder Egypt’s access to the Nile’s water.

Launched almost two weeks ago, Egysat will monitor Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam by capturing high quality photos of the construction site along with other sources of the Nile, said Alaa El-din El-Nahry, vice president of Egypt’s National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences.

The LE300 million satellite – which will come into operation in mid-June after a two-month test period – will track the dam’s height, storage capacity and water discharge. It will also monitor the Kongo River basin to assess the effectiveness of a proposed project to link the Kongo and Nile rivers.

Egypt’s government believes the satellite’s findings will bolster its negotiations with Ethiopia and provide legal ground in case it must resort to international arbitration over any violations in the dam’s stated purpose of electricity generation, El-Nahry said during a seminar in Cairo, according to Al-Ahram’s daily Arabic newspaper.

Egypt has been particularly concerned that the dam, now more than 30 percent finished, will hugely impact its share of the Nile, the country’s main source of potable water.

Situated near the Sudanese border on the Blue Nile, a Nile tributary, the hydroelectric dam will be the biggest in Africa, capable of producing 6,000 megawatts of energy.

Last week, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn urged Egypt to return to the tripartite discussions with Ethiopia and Sudan in an effort to settle the dispute. The three countries have been engaged in a series of dialogues since the launch of the project three years ago.

Last year, Ethiopia and five other Nile-basin countries – Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Burundi – endorsed an accord, the Co-operative Framework Agreement, which replaces a 1929 treaty granting Egypt veto power over any project on the Nile in upstream countries.

Sudan, Egypt’s immediate downstream country, has backed Ethiopia’s plans to build the dam.

Ethiopia cancels $1 billion fuel imports from Sudan

April 5, 2013 (ADDIS ABABA) – The Ethiopian Petroleum Supplier Enterprise (EPSE) has retracted its statement last month that reported that the country had imported over $1 billion of fuel from neighbouring Sudan via Djibouti, as reported by Sudan Tribune on March 31.

The EPSE Sunday reported that the 1,091,823 metric tonnes of oil had in fact been
imported from other sources, the EPSE’s spokesperson, Alemayehu Tsegaye declined to name.

Without disclosing the reasons behind the decision the spokesperson told Sudan Tribune that Ethiopia stopped importing fuel from Sudan last year after it terminated its contract with Khartoum.

Ethiopia used to import up to 85% of its annual oil consumption from neighbouring Sudan, largely due to its geographic proximity.

(ST)

In unusual rebuke, Saudi Arabia accuses Ethiopia of posing threats to Sudan & Egypt

---

February 26, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – A senior Saudi Arabian official unleashed a barrage of attack against Ethiopia saying that the Horn of Africa nation is posing a threat to the Nile water rights of Egypt and Sudan.

Saudi deputy defense minister Khalid Bin Sultan (Al-Riyadh)

“The [Grand] Renaissance dam has its capacity of flood waters reaching more than 70 billion cubic meters of water, and is located at an altitude of 700 meters and if it collapsed then Khartoum will drown completely and the impact will even reach the Aswan Dam,” the Saudi deputy defense minister Khalid Bin Sultan said at the meetings of the Arab Water Council in Cairo.

“Egypt is the most affected party from the Ethiopian Renaissance dam because they have no alternative water source compared to other Nile Basin countries and the establishment of the dam 12 kilometers from the Sudanese border is for political plotting rather than for economic gain and constitutes a threat to Egyptian and Sudanese national security “the Saudi official said.

The massive $4.8 billion dam is under construction and is scheduled for completion in 2015. It lies close to Sudan’s eastern borders and has a power generating capacity of 6,000MW and when completed it will enable Ethiopia to export more power to its neighbors.

Egypt fears that the Nile dam will reduce the flow of the river’s waters further downstream and Addis Ababa has long complained that Cairo was pressuring donor countries and international lenders to withhold funding.

An international panel of experts is set to announce its findings on the impact of Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam on the Nile’s flow in May 2013.

The Saudi deputy defense minister went further saying that Ethiopia is keen on harming Arab nations.

“There are fingers messing with water resources of Sudan and Egypt which are rooted in the mind and body of Ethiopia. They do not forsake an opportunity to harm Arabs without taking advantage of it” Prince Khalid said.

“The establishment of the dam leads to the transfer of water supply from the front of Lake Nasser to the Ethiopian plateau, which means full Ethiopian control of every drop of water, as well as [causing] an environmental imbalance stirring seismic activity in the region as a result of the massive water weight laden with silt withheld in front of the dam, estimated by experts at more than 63 billion tonnes,” he added.

The Saudi official added that Nile basin countries calling for reallocating Nile water shares is a “real threat” to Egypt’s future.

“The information is alarming and it is important that we do not underestimate the danger at the moment and its repercussions in the future,” he said.

It is unusual for Saudi officials known for being composed to make such damning criticism of other countries. It is not clear whether today’s remarks indicates hidden tensions with Ethiopia.

Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, along with Ethiopia, signed an agreement to overturn British-colonial-era agreements dating back to 1929.

These gave Egypt and Sudan 90 percent of the Nile’s water flow and the power of veto over dam-building, even though 85 percent of the river’s water flows from the Ethiopian highlands.

Ethiopia and the upstream states contend they need more water because of burgeoning populations, industrialization and agricultural projects.

Water needs are expected to rise as the Nile basin population is projected to reach 654 million by 2030, up from 372 million in 2005, according to UN estimates.

(ST)

East Africa: Ethiopian Police Seize Weapons Smuggled From Sudan

Addis Ababa — Ethiopian security forces have seized hundreds of illegal weapons smuggled into the horn of Africa nation from neighboring Sudan, federal police said on Saturday.

Ethiopian police in collaboration with regional border guards confiscated the weapons in Metama town in the Amhara region which borders the Blue Nile state of Sudan.

“Police have seized a total of 481 pistols and 13,000 bullets” Fekadu Berhe of the Ethiopia’s Federal Police Media and Communication Department told Sudan Tribune.

The added that a number of smugglers have been arrested during the operations without giving an exact figure.

It is not yet clear if the smugglers belong to any rebel groups. Other than confirming that the smugglers were all Ethiopian nationals, police officials declined to give further details saying the case is under investigation.

The federal police also say they have managed to intercept large amount of arms of various types during the past few months. Metema has long been a gateway for arms smugglers who attempt to cross Ethiopia via the Sudanese borders by hiding on cars and trucks.

Egypt to build an airbase in Sudan, to launch attacks on Ethiopia

LONDON — Egyptian authorities fearful of a monopoly on Nile waters received agreement from Khartoum to build an airbase in Sudan, to launch attacks on Ethiopian damming facilities, claims the anonymous media outlet; Wikileaks.

Wikileaks has leaked files allegedly from the Texas-based global intelligence company, Stratfor, which quote an anonymous “high-level Egyptian source,” claiming the Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon said in 2010 his nation would do anything to prevent the secession of South Sudan because of the political implications it will have for Egypt’s access to the Nile.

The Nile is vital in providing fresh water to the people and agricultural projects of Egypt. Also in the Nile Basin and reliant on its waters are Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi.

As Egypt is at the end of the river it is a particularly politically precarious situation.

Ethiopia’s planned massive hydroelectric damming project has sent shockwaves throughout the region, highlighting the faults in previously-signed treaties on Nile-sharing.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric facility and will be built 40km upstream from Sudan on the Blue Nile.

Ethiopia has denied Egypt’s requests to inspect the dam, unless it relinquishes its veto on water allocation. Although, according the source, Ethiopia has agreed not to use the reservoir waters for irrigation, there are concerns about the extent of water loss due to evaporation from the dam’s reservoir.

According to Wikileaks, a 2010 internal email records Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir’s agreement to host an Egyptian airbase in Kursi in the west of Sudan’s Darfur region. This base would be used to launch an Egyptian assault on the Ethiopian dam, if diplomatic efforts fail.

The anonymous source cites the “useful case-study” of Egypt’s 1976 sabotage of an Ethiopia damming project.

However, the viability of joint Sudanese-Egyptian military operations have been brought into question in light of their fractious relationship.

According to Wikileaks, the Stratfor source claimed that “if it comes to a crisis, we will send a jet to bomb the dam and come back in one day, simple as that. Or we can send our special forces in to block/sabotage the dam.”

Although they agree upon the Nile Basin Treaty, the contested Halayed Triangle, in 2010, to Bashir accusing Egypt of occupying Sudanese territory.

The immediacy and extent of the Ethiopian threat to Egyptian freshwater access is questionable but its domestic political usefulness for the now ousted Mubarak regime is not.

The continued political application of the Ethiopian threat is, allegedly, now being exerted on the incumbent government by the Muslim Brotherhood.

On 26 August Egypt denied allegations that the new government is under pressure to persuade key regional investor, China, to not back such Nile development programmes.

The UN estimates that by 2050 the world’s population will have increased by 3.5 billion, with the majority of the growth in developing countries where water stress is already in key issue, potentially making access to freshwater more incendiary than access to fossil fuels in the coming decades.

Although Egypt was a perennial economic underachiever during the Mubarak regime’s years of mismanagement, it has the potential to be a powerhouse. This makes its need to secure future access to resources all the more important and potentially domineering.

Sudan Tribune

Sudan: Ethiopian Gunmen Attack Governor

Khartoum — A convoy carrying the governor of Sudan’s eastern state of Al-Qadarif across the shared borders with Ethiopia on Sunday was attacked by suspected members of the Ethiopian gang known as Shifta, Sudan Tribune has learned.

The attack took place as the convoy of the governor, Karam Allah Abbas, was crossing Um Dabalo area in Abu Sanda Sudanese locality bordering Ethiopia. Abbas was on his way to the neighboring Amhara Region of Ethiopia for a meeting with its governor when he stopped in Um Dabalo after spotting an Ethiopian farmer working in the area.

The governor started an argument with the Ethiopian farmer and told him that the land belongs to Sudan, at which point a group of armed Ethiopian men arrived at the scene and opened fire on the governor’s convoy.

Although no one was harmed in the fire, Abbas immediately cancelled his trip to the Amhara region and called in security reinforcements to escort his convoy back to Al-Qadarif.

Sources told Sudan Tribune that the incident had infuriated the governor who later threatened to sever his state’s ties with Ethiopia without referring to the central government in Khartoum.

The sources added that the governor had also threatened to lead a military campaign against the Shifta gangs and arm Sudanese tribes to fight them.

Sudan and Ethiopia agreed to demarcate their border, signed a number security agreements and also implementing a number of joint development projects for the population on the border zones.

However, Ethiopian opoosition groups criticized the demarcation saying that Prime Minister Zenawi conceded Ethiopian territory to the Sudan to compensate Khartoum for arresting rebels and banning their activities in the neighbouring country.

The governor of the Amhara Region Ato Ayalew Gobeze officially apologized to Abbas for the attack by the Shifta and promised to cooperate with Sudanese authorities in hunting down the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, local security authorities in Al-Qadarif announced on Monday that 12 suspects had been arrested in relation with the attack.

Al-Qadarif state government also announced that it intends to lodge an official complaint to the Ethiopian government against the attack.

People traffickers stalk Eritreans in Sudan desert

SHAGARAB REFUGEE CAMP, SUDAN — Moving at night through the cold, flat desert, armed people smugglers are exploiting, abducting and sometimes killing Eritreans fleeing their authoritarian homeland, the UN and refugees say.

“People catch us, sell us like a goat,” one Eritrean asylum-seeker said of the human traffickers.

Like others who have reached this wind-blown collection of shelters inside the Sudanese border, he accused the local Rashaida tribe of involvement in the people trade, which the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) is hoping to counter through a $2-million effort to support local police and improve camp security.

“These groups that are involved in this are heavily armed. We hear of firefights between government forces and these armed groups,” said Felix Ross, the UNHCR’s senior protection officer in Sudan’s eastern region.

He told AFP the problem has emerged over the past two or three years, with the UNHCR hearing of at least 20 kidnapping cases a month.

“But we believe that the number itself is much higher,” Ross said.

On a visit to the Shagarab camp on Thursday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said a global criminal network of smugglers and kidnappers is “taking profit of the desperate situation of many Eritreans.”

Shagarab camp receives about 2,000 asylum-seekers monthly, largely from neighbouring Eritrea where many have fled compulsory military service.

The UN estimates that 80 percent of the new arrivals leave the camp within two months for Khartoum, Egypt, Israel or further afield, in search of better economic opportunities.

“Due to the limitation on the freedom of movement of refugees in Sudan, refugees and asylum-seekers resort to smugglers to transport them into, through and out of Sudan,” a UNHCR briefing paper said.

But some simply end up being kidnapped for ransoms which the UNHCR said can reach $10,000.

“Here there is not security. There is many person kidnapped,” an Eritrean who has spent four months at Shagarab said, speaking in English.

He and other Eritreans interviewed during a UN-organised visit cannot be named, for their own protection.

One 23-year-old woman — who like the men said she had fled military service — said smugglers took her in 2010 from Eritrea to Egypt, “and when we arrived there they asked my family for more money,” which they did not have.

She was arrested and jailed before being deported and then making her way — this time without involving traffickers — to the Sudanese camp.

An Eritrean man, aged 27, said camp residents face a risk of being snatched if they walk out to the toilet area at night.

Others are “kidnapped by Rashaida” on their way in from the border, he said at the one-room cement block he shares with 25 other men. Their belongings hang from the wall beside a picture of Christ.

“They ask them for ransom money… some of the people said it’s about 50,000 pounds ($12,000),” he said through a translator. “Most of the time they cannot pay, so they are tortured.”

UNHCR chief Guterres said some refugees who ended up in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula were “killed for the traffic of organs.”

The Rashaida are a camel-raising tribe whose buildings near the state capital Kassala are painted bright pastel pink and blue.

The area around their roadside market, a row of corrugated metal shacks, is believed to be a smuggling hotbed for everything including people, Ross said.

Human traffickers are “making a lot of money in a region where it’s difficult to earn money,” he said.

“We know that in the refugee community there are people working with these criminal groups.”

Between Kassala and the camps 120 kilometres (75 miles) away, the Eritrean border lies beyond trees barely visible in the distance across the barren brown earth — the smugglers’ turf.

“If you were to travel here by night you would see a lot of lights crossing through the desert,” Ross said.

Sudan’s refugee commission recognises almost all of the new asylum-seekers as refugees, but if they stay in the camps they could wait years for resettlement, and have little in common with older refugees or the local population.

The Eritreans arriving since 2005 are mostly Christian and not Arabic speakers, in contrast with an older group of mostly Muslim Eritreans who began fleeing to Muslim-majority Sudan four decades ago during their country’s independence war with Ethiopia, the UN says.

“How about us, the newcomers?” an Eritrean who has spent eight months at the camp asked AFP. “Nobody cares about us.”