I recently visited North Sinai with a group of human rights advocates in an attempt to unpack the thriving business of human trafficking. As a border area, Sinai has housed all forms of smuggling, from potatoes to arms.

Southward, the smuggling of humans to Israel also started to thrive, especially following the Egyptian security massacre in 2005, when riot police forcibly broke up a peaceful sit-in of Sudanese refugees in Mohandiseen, killing dozens and wounding hundreds. Increasingly distressed from their experiences in Egypt, Sudanese refugees found help from Bedouin tribesmen in the peninsula to cross to Israel for a couple of hundred dollars.

 

Hat tip: samenslow