The persons of people kept thousands of migrants captive

He was detained during the “vacation” - one of the victims recognized him on the street

In January 2023, Interpol announced the arrest of the “most wanted” person in the world of a merchant - Kidan Zekariasa Khabtemariam. Large material about the life of Khabtamariam and his victims was published in The New Yorker. "Cold" retells the main thing.

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In 2017, leaving his native Ethiopia for a better life, the 18-year-old Fuad to the hip decided on a dangerous journey through Libya. To get to Europe, migrants have to overcome a heavy route through North Africa. And also pay to smugglers so that they are illegally transported through the Mediterranean Sea. The thigh was not lucky. He turned out to be one of those who were captured by a person’s tradem, and for several months his life was in the hands of one of the most wanted people in the world - Kidan Zekarias Khabtemariam.

Life for seven dollars

The thigh and hundreds of other migrants who dreamed of getting to Europe were kept in a special Beni-Valid camp in the middle of the Libyan desert. The conditions were extremely bad. Most of the refugees were driven into a special room, but there were so many people in it that the prisoners had to sleep on the floor in turn. Shower was allowed to take only once a month in groups. From food - only a small portion of pasta. In such unsanitary conditions, diseases quickly spread among migrants.

In the camp, Kidan Zekarias Hubtemariam ruled. He demanded that each migrant contact his relatives so that they pay several thousand dollars of ransom. Those whose relatives could not pay were kept in a special warehouse (the captives themselves called him a “suicide camera”), where several people died every night.

According to the recollections of refugees, Kidans himself told the prisoners: "I will cost me about 10 dinars (seven dollars) to kill you." Exactly so much is a mushroom sheet in which the guards wrapped the corpses before buried them in the desert.

Those who were not broken by illnesses and unsanitary conditions had to live in constant fear. Kidans arranged for himself and the camp guards a kind of football matches: during the game of refugees who could not score a goal, they shot. And after the winning team, as a “reward”, raped one of the migrants.

Every few days, the guards pulled someone out of the crowd and forced the relatives to call. When a person told loved ones about what situation he was in, the overseers demanded a ransom and began to severely beat it. Often, Kidan himself was engaged in this.

A refugee named Hirma, who passed through these torture, told reporters how one day Kidan forced him to call his relatives in the video, and then cut his stomach on the camera with the guards. In total, about nine thousand dollars had to pay for the liberation of Hirma. Despite the ransom and tortured, Hirma could not move through the Mediterranean Sea and returned to his homeland, like the majority of the surviving captives of the camp.

The owner of the camp

The “most wanted person trafficking in the world” was born in Eritrea - a country with a population of about three million people, from which about eight thousand seekers of a better life leave every month.

Nothing is known about childhood and family of Kidan. No one can even accurately name his age. However, it is known that in the late 2000s, Kidan left for Sudan. In Hartum, he met with people who controlled the smuggling routes through the sugar and towards the Mediterranean Sea. After the Arab Spring of 2011, the prices for illegal move to Europe rose significantly, and Kidana began to earn money. Working in Libya, by 2014 he had accumulated a sufficient amount to advance in the criminal business, and began managing the refugee camp in Beni-Valid.

According to journalists, at the peak in 2017, his “business” could earn about $ 10 million a year. Kidana himself received only 40% of the money that the relatives of the captives sent him. The rest left the influential Libyan family Diab, which owned the camp, and for the cost of maintaining the camp.

The smuggling of people is seasonal work, since the safest time for crossing the Mediterranean Sea is from April to September. Therefore, Kidan spent the rest of the year in the UAE, where he came up with a way to wash his income. The money that the relatives of migrants sent to the ransom did not get to the kidan directly. They were received by the associates and brother of Kidan Henok in Dubai. They sent some of the funds received to Kidan, another part was invested.

Libyan law enforcement agencies knew about who the Kidan is and what exactly he was doing in Beni-Valid, but did not intervene. And the European authorities became interested in this issue only in the mid-2010s, when the flow of migrants began to grow. The boats were overloaded and often drowned. Many died without reaching the EU.

Those who managed to survive and still get to another continent told European prosecutors about the atrocities that they had to endure.

Kidan controlled the camp for about six years until he was detained. This happened quite by accident - thanks to one of his captives.

Karma

On the first night, in the camp, Kidan was declared a violator of order. The guards of the Kidans doused it with icy water and left it for the night in the cold desert. After that, the thigh was tied up and beaten the whip. The wounds did not heal the month, and the scars still remained. Kidan himself also beat his thigh with a stick whenever he passed.

The thigh did not wait for the ransom and a few months after the conclusion he tried to escape from the camp. Together with him, about a hundred more migrants tried to do this. They went into the desert, but the guards overtook them. According to the local organization “Doctors without Borders”, at least 15 people were shot, dozens were injured. The thigh hit the leg. Wounded, he reached the nearest mosque. Two months later, he managed to get to the UN camp in Libya, from where he was repatriated back to Ethiopia.

In February 2020, the thigh walked along the streets of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, talking to a friend when he suddenly saw a familiar face: his tormentor, Kidan Zekarias Hubtemariam, calmly walked in front of him.

The hip decided to follow him and, when he finally became convinced that in front of him was exactly the person who beat him and other captive camps, informed the police standing nearby.

When the Kidans were detained, he tried to give a police bribe, and then escape through the crowded market, but he was quickly caught and taken into custody.

It turned out that many smugglers came to Ethiopia in Ethiopia, the human rights activist and journalist Meron Estepanos found out. She transferred this information to the regional operational center in Hartum - the police body financed by the European Union. The center contacted the Ethiopian authorities, and a month and a half later a colleague and comrade -in -arms of Kidan, Teveld Gotom, was arrested, known in criminal circles as Velid. Unlike Kidan, who was famous for his beatings, the prisoners of the camp knew Velisa as a serial rapist.

Due to bureaucratic difficulties, it was quite difficult to judge Kidan and Velis. In 2020, an epidemic of coronavirus began, and in the Ethiopia in court it is forbidden to testify on the video. At the same time, many victims of the Kidan lived in other African countries or in Europe. As a result, due to a lack of testimony, he was charged with people's trafficking in eight cases.

The trial lasted quite a while, and the Kidans managed to escape. In February 2021, when he was brought to the next meeting, Kidan changed into his specially prepared clothes and left the court building. According to the report of The New Yorker, for this, the Eritreic smugglers paid about 250 thousand dollars. Who exactly helped him is still not clear.

The court continued without it, and in April 2021 the Kidan was found guilty of people trading and sentenced to life imprisonment. By that time, Kidan had already left the country. However, the escape attracted the attention of Interpol and the Dutch police - it is in this European country that many victims of Kidan live. Interpol issued a “red card” - this is the name of a request to law enforcement agencies of different countries to determine the whereabouts and detain the criminal.

In December 2022, Interpol employees and investigators from the Emirates found out where Kidan was hiding. On January 1, 2023, the officers broke the door of the apartment where Kidan stopped, and he was again detained. There was a weapon in the apartment, but he did not use it. On the same day, his brother Henok, who was engaged in laundering of money, was arrested in Dubai. Immediately after the arrests, the UAE authorities announced the detention of "one of the most wanted criminals in the world." Now the brothers are in custody in the Emirates, but they are planning to judge them for “laundering of money” - local investigators received such an order to arrest them.

The authorities of the Netherlands are still awaiting Kidan's extradition in order to judge him for trafficking in people. Nevertheless, probably, in the Court of the Netherlands, for the first time, Kidan will not be about this. Now in the Netherlands they are judged by his former associate - Velid. He continues to insist on his own innocence, and the defense team called Kidan as a witness.

Despite the conclusion in the Kidan camp, now the 24-year-old Fuad had no attempts to go to Europe. At first he went to Izmir, and from there sat on the boat to the Greek Island of Samos. However, there were too many passengers on board, there were no rescue vests. When the storm began, their boat began to sink. The thigh even had to throw overboard the only bag with things. Fortunately, by morning, a boat with migrants nevertheless moored to the island. In the new country, he had nothing but a jacket and phone.

Now the thigh lives in one of the South European countries and works at the chicken processing plant in five euros per hour. Despite the separation from the family and the difficult living conditions, he does not think to return home. “It’s better to be here, even one,” told reporters to the hip.