Prisoners in the Sinai
Human Rights Defenders take on the Traffickers
By Roberto Malini Rome /Arish – http://www.tolerance.ca/Article.aspx?ID=123193&L=en
What use are the actions undertaken by human rights defenders? What use are the campaigns, reports and complaints, contacts with the institutions and the media during these operations? Unfortunately, they are sometimes insufficient to prevent humanitarian tragedies taking place, or to save lives. This is not the case, however, for the long campaign that EveryOne Group and other NGOs involved in defending the rights of refugees has carried out to protect sub-Saharan migrants in Northern Sinai.Thanks to an enormous amount of evidence, reports, photographs and videos, human rights defenders have helped to save hundreds of human lives in the North Sinai Governorate. Thanks to the continuous presence of the media and several actions by the United Nations and European Union; thanks to the courageous work of organizations such as New Generation Foundation for Human Rights, ICER, Agenzia Habeshia, the NGO Gandhi, and other small and large organizations, many human beings have now been saved who were once destined for the human organs black market, brutal treatment in the traffickers’ hideouts, inhuman conditions in Egyptian prisons and deportation. This result does not lessen the pain for the many victims in the past, or the suffering of many other young refugees. However, we believe that every life saved is a miracle, an important step towards a human society without violence, discrimination and injustice.