Sunday, July 21, 2013

Africans tell of torture and rape by Arabs in Yemen

But so what? The UN isn't concerned with real crimes against humanity, like, for example, Israel building homes.
(BBC) The Ethiopian teenager survived a treacherous boat journey being smuggled across the Red Sea.

But on reaching Yemen, she was kidnapped and driven at gunpoint to a mud brick house.

She said: "They tortured other girls in front of me. They beat us and they raped us at gunpoint. I was terrified."

She is one of 80,000 Ethiopian migrants who undertake this dangerous journey every year.

They hope they will find work in the wealthy Gulf state of Saudi Arabia and be able to send money home.

But they risk being exploited by criminal gangs and the Yemeni military in the 500 km (310 miles) trek across Yemen to the Saudi border.

Efta was held at what is known as a "torture camp" for three months.

She was too ashamed to ask her parents for money to set her free so she was raped every day.

Once it became clear that no ransom was going to be paid and after Efta fell ill, she was thrown out on the street.

She is now being cared for in a refugee centre run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the Yemeni border town of Haradh.

She remains traumatised by her experience.

"The women get raped and the men are burned. They break bones. They take people's eyes out," she said.

"Everything you can imagine, they do it. I saw it with my own eyes."

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