Hercules

SAWA Defense Training Center

After about 20 hours of walking towards Sudan, the smuggler told us he didn’t want to go to Sudan and that he would get in a truck to go back to Eritrea. We were yelling. We were very angry because he had promised to stay with us and to take us into Sudan. He said he would bring us water from a nearby village and would take only half of the money from our friend. We later found out he did not keep his promise; he had pressured our friend to give him all of the money.

Sudan

Hecame back with water after three hours and showed us the direction to reach the next town. We walked for hours. There, we found Eritrean people who gave us clothes and took us to the UNHCR office. We stayed in a temporary housing for vulnerable people for five days. But we had to be moved to a camp because we were 80 in the house. That camp was terrible. They didn’t provide anything to us; there were no organizations helping us. I spent four months there. You couldn’t leave the camp unless you had money because you are not allowed to leave. In 2011, the only way to leave was to pay $100 to a smuggler to cross the river that was surrounding the camp and reach Khartoum. I think it must cost $600 now.

My friend managed to leave after three weeks because his older brother sent him money. He received the money on his phone and sent it to the smuggler on his phone too. “I called some friends from Eritrea to ask them for money. They helped me.” (Hercules received $200 through the hawala, an informal money transfer system popular throughout parts of Asia, the Middle East and Africa).

Then, I gave $100 to the same smuggler my friend had used. I was caught by the police for the first time and had to return to the camp. The police beat me with a stick in the police station. They brought me back to the camp after three hours.

After two weeks I made a contact with someone who said he could give me a job occasionally. I worked on a farm, harvesting, in the morning for three days. 

Travel to Sinai, Egypt

On the third day, while we had just started work, the guy told us to take a break. He gave us food and water then he disappeared. He had made a secret arrangement with white Arabs from the Sinai in Egypt, ‘Bedouins’ that we call ‘Rashaidas’ in Tigrinya. They kidnapped us and took us to Sinai in a car. Seven other people were thrown into the van. When we reached the Egyptian border, they put us in a bigger van—us three and other Eritreans who were in three different cars. In the big van, we were almost 56 Eritrean people. The back of the van had three to four shelves. There were more than ten Eritreans per shelf. We were squeezed back of the van which had three to four shelves.

This lasted for a month, until we settled in Sinai, somewhere where there were no soldiers. We were slaves. They made me call my family. They forced me to cry on the phone and to beg them for $3,500 so I wouldn’t be killed. Some were asked for $30,000 or even $40,000. I was released after two and a half months.” (Hercules’ family made a ransom payment through the hawala system.)

Israeli Border

They released me and a few other Eritreans at the border with Israel. There were three fences, one to Egypt, one international border, and a third Israeli border. The Bedouins told us to climb the fences until [we reached] Israel. Egyptian police tried to shoot us. We managed to reach Israel by going under the international fence and climbing the Israeli one. Back in 2011, it was feasible but now it’s very difficult.

When we put our feet in Israel, we told the military we were civilians—they saw we were very weak, we had no clothes. They arrested us. They took us to a refugee camp (This was likely a detention facility for African asylum seekers). There were doctors there that took care of us. We were like skeletons.

Tel Aviv, Israel

After three weeks, I felt much better and they sent me to Tel Aviv with a few other Eritreans. There, I obtained police papers that allowed me to stay in Israel for two months—this visa had to be renewed every two months. I tried to get asylum but they told me this was a Jewish state.

I stayed in Israel for four years. I worked in restaurants and then at a swimming pool as a cleaner. My boss would take me to renew my papers every two months. I learned Hebrew there. I was working 15 hours a day, and made 2,600 shekels per month [about $700]. I was sharing an apartment with four other Eritreans.

But at the end of 2015, the Israeli government said they did not want Eritrean and Sudanese refugees to stay in the streets in Israel. I got an appointment with Asylum Services to get into the concentration camp in November. They told me that I had two months to choose between three options: to be voluntarily returned to Eritrea and to receive $3,500, to stay in a concentration camp forever, or to be deported to Rwanda with $3,500. I chose Rwanda.

Rwanda

Before they deported me, the Israeli authorities told me I had the right to work in Rwanda. In Rwanda we were placed in a hotel that the Israeli government paid for, and stayed there for three nights. Then we were given the $3,500 in cash. (Hercules was hiding his money in holes in his jeans, under his belt.) And the Israeli police took our papers so we would not resell them.

The first night in the hotel, a smuggler known by Rwandan authorities approached us. ‘It’s governmental work. The governments of Rwanda and Israel are doing business with us and the smugglers,’ he said. He told us that if we gave him $250, he would take us to Uganda. He said it was much easier for us to work there. I said yes because I already thought that Uganda would be better for us than Rwanda.

When we reached the border in Rwanda with nine other Eritreans, the smuggler took us to a small bridge and we crossed and arrived in Uganda together. The smuggler then took us to Kampala.

Kampala, Uganda

There the smuggler asked us for $300 to take us to a hotel in which we could stay for a week. I had no friends nor family in Uganda so I said okay. The owner of the hotel, who was Eritrean, said I should go to Sudan because Rwanda and Uganda were difficult countries for Eritreans. I knew nothing about these countries so I wanted to go to Sudan. I had no more papers and needed a smuggler. The owner of the hotel introduced me to a smuggler who asked for $700. I agreed to pay and said I would give him the money once in South Sudan. He trusted me because it is apparently common for Eritreans to reach Sudan through South Sudan.

The smuggler told me that the two other Eritreans wanted to go to South Sudan and that we would travel together. Two days later, we met in the hotel and left with the car. Before we reached the border, policemen in Uganda caught us and asked for $300 from each of us to let us cross. I had heard of other people who had had to give $1,500. The smugglers encouraged us to obey.

Travel through South Sudan

“We continued and reached the border with South Sudan. Our smuggler suddenly told us he had finished his mission. He called another South Sudanese smuggler and asked him to take us from the bridge to South Sudan. We had to give him $700. Once in South Sudan, three other smugglers on motorbikes came to us and told us to go on the motorbikes with them. They said that we could only avoid the patrol and police if we went through the jungle with them. They asked for another $400. However, we did not reach the capital on the motorbikes. We had to stop and get in a minibus. (This was included in the $400.) The drivers warned us there was a checkpoint and said we had to pay them more, we gave them $100. Then, the police caught us and asked us for $500. We were forced to give it to them. All of our money was almost gone.

Once in the capital, the smugglers showed us a hotel full of Eritreans. We moved there. Eritreans helped us find a smuggler to reach Sudan. With $900 dollars, I got a fake document valid for six months that allowed me to fly from Juba to a small village at the north of South Sudan. From there I was picked up by a Land Cruiser—there were goats, oil bottles, etcetera, in the truck. The whole trip lasted eight or nine days until I reached Khartoum.

Juba, South Sudan

In Khartoum, I had to pay $30 to get a mandatory identity card. This was a valid document. But any time police arrested me in the street, they would take me to an 'Arabi’ [a detention center] and ask me for money to let me out. Sometimes it could go up to $200. Whenever, I saw the police I had to run away. I stopped going out. I was very careful always. I stayed in my home and did not go out for nine and a half months.

I got my Eritrean friends to send me more of my money from Israel [via hawala] because I was not feeling safe and couldn’t work. The government was telling the Sudanese police: ‘You can take your salary off Eritreans.’

Turkey

In October 2016, I decided to go to Turkey. I found a smuggler who could make me a visa for $7,350 [for every 100 I have to pay a 5-euro charge]. My Eritrean friends in Israel paid one of the agent’s smugglers in Israel.