ADDIS ABABA, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian police on Tuesday announced the arrest of 17 suspected members of an organized human trafficking network accused of illegally trafficking tens of thousands of Ethiopians and causing the deaths of more than 60 people.
The suspects, allegedly led by a trafficking kingpin named Mohamed Tahir Aden, operated a large-scale network that illegally smuggled more than 40,000 Ethiopian nationals to Saudi Arabia through Djibouti and Yemen, the Ethiopian Federal Police said in a statement.
In addition to committing serious crimes, including sexual violence against several women, police also accused the trafficking group of collecting more than 1 billion birr (about 6.19 million U.S. dollars) from victims.
Police said the group used brokers to identify and recruit victims from different parts of the East African country and facilitated their illegal smuggling abroad by falsely promising the victims they would easily enter Saudi Arabia via Yemen and live a better life.
The victims were said to have endured "severe inhumane acts" as soon as they crossed the Ethiopian border, and were illegally detained in warehouses in Yemen. They were also held hostage as the smugglers demanded large sums of money from their families, while those unable to pay were subjected to torture.
The latest crackdown came as Ethiopia has intensified its anti-trafficking measures in recent years, aiming to dismantle sophisticated human trafficking networks and create economic opportunities for vulnerable segments of the population.
The Red Sea route, also known as the eastern migration route connecting the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, is the primary human trafficking corridor for thousands of desperate migrants. The International Organization for Migration classified the corridor as one of "the busiest and most dangerous migration corridors" in the world.
