I recognized my Eritrean sister in a video of a captured refugee

Mihret Gebru watched with concern on her phone recently two viral videos showing people from the Horn of Africa being beaten and attacked by armed men in Sudan, then she discovered to her horror that her The younger sister is also among the prisoners.

“I recognized Luwam immediately, she was wearing an orange scarf that I knew very well, and her shoes, part of which was visible,” she told the BBC.

The sisters are from Eritrea, and like many young people, Luwam Gebru fled the country’s indefinite military conscription, which they felt robbed them of their future.

In 2019, she eventually arrived in neighboring Ethiopia, where she was granted refugee status. But being a refugee is like living a precarious life – many people choose to embark on dangerous journeys in search of a new life and opportunity.

Ms. Mihret said her 24-year-old sibling decided to risk crossing Sudan’s war zone to Libya just months after the conflict broke out last year.

Sudan descended into chaos in April 2023 when allied forces – the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – began fighting each other for control of the country.

Many foreigners were hastily evacuated, but some refugees already in the country and recently arrived migrants like Ms. Luwam found themselves under suspicion and taken as prisoners of war.

“We haven’t heard her voice for almost a month,” Ms. Mihret said.

“She had called us from Sudan and told us: ‘Don’t worry, I have arrived safely in Sudan and we will probably reach Libya this week.'”

Her sister sounded confident that the trafficker she had entrusted her life to would not let her down.

But nothing was heard from her again for the next five months – until the videos appeared on social media in April.

Analysis of the footage by BBC verify showed that the videos were uploaded between April 7 and 8.

A Sudanese army general described the 50 or so detainees on a truck as “mercenaries from Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia.”

They appeared to have been captured while fleeing heavy fighting around the Jali oil refinery north of the capital Khartoum, which has been in the hands of Doctors Without Borders and is used as a base in the area.

In one of the videos, an officer said the prisoners were being transferred to the army’s Wadi Sedna military base north of the capital.

There are unconfirmed reports that SSF is using foreign fighters, which may explain officers’ hostility to the group.

The group, huddled in a room at the warehouse, included several photos of Luwam wearing an orange scarf.

Ms. Mihret, who also recognized a neighbor from Eritrea who was among the group, said they had no further information.

“We don’t know much, we are told they are detained by Sudanese authorities.”

Other Eritreans told the BBC that they had relatives registered as refugees in Sudan who had gone missing and were reportedly being held by the Sudanese military.

Two of them left Eritrea together last year and arrived in October at a UN-run refugee camp in Kassala state in eastern Sudan.

Yonatan Tesfaslassie, 17, and Edmon Kidane, 20, were then approached by smugglers, their families said.

The traffickers, some allegedly from Doctors Without Borders, often target young people and new arrivals, promising them a safe route out of Sudan in exchange for a fee.

Once en route, they pressure them to pay more money to their relatives abroad and then abandon them along the way.

In the case of Mr Yonatan and Mr Edmund, their target was South Sudan, but they appear to have been abandoned and lost by the smugglers.

They all appeared to have arrived in Wad Madani in Gezira state, a city about 190 kilometers (118 miles) south of Khartoum that has been a safe haven for many since the war began.

But in December it fell into the hands of Doctors Without Borders, More than 300,000 people fled the area amid chaos.

That was the last time Mr Yonatan’s family heard from him – at the time he said he was traveling to South Sudan with other migrants.

His sister, Winta Tesfaslasi, later learned from those who managed to cross the border safely that he might have been one of many migrants arrested in the army-controlled town of Rabek slightly further south.

Some of them were taken to the nearby town of Sinja and others may have been taken to the town of Sennar and detained by the army, they said.

“The whole family is worried, doesn’t know what to do and feels helpless. We want to know if he is safe, he is too young to go through such an ordeal and he has nothing to do with the war in Sudan,” said Ms Winta, who lives in the UK. told the BBC.

The last time Mr Edmond’s family heard from him was also when he was in Wad Madani – although he appears to have been detained for several weeks before the city fell to Doctors Without Borders.

“One of the smugglers told us that he was detained by the Sudanese army,” his sister Adiam Kidane, who lives in Angola, told the BBC.

The smuggler was their only source of information, she said, “but then he stopped answering our calls.”

“We couldn’t tell my mother for a long time, but eventually we had to. When she heard the news that we were without him, she fainted. We were all in limbo. We kept thinking about what might have happened to him .

Some reports suggested that more than 200 migrants of various nationalities had been detained at a military facility in Wad Madani before MSF’s advance, but the BBC could not independently confirm this.

The detainees were reportedly moved with the army as it retreated from Wadmadani.

The U.N. refugee agency said it had received similar reports of the military detaining asylum seekers and refugees. According to the United Nations, there are more than 147,000 Eritreans and about 70,000 Ethiopians in the country.

It told the BBC it was planning to travel to Sennar state, including the towns of Sinja and Rabek, for verification, urging relatives of refugees who believe they have been detained to report the information Via UNHCR Sudan’s help page.

Likewise, the ICRC said that those with missing family members in Sudan should open a case by: its hotline or office in the country.

“Helping families who have lost contact with their loved ones to find them is one of our top priorities. But whether we can do that depends on the access conditions we have and the precarious security situation,” the ICRC told UK broadcasters company.

The Sudanese embassy in London did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment on the detention of foreigners.

Despite international efforts to halt the fighting, which is believed to have killed more than 15,000 people, the warring parties have been unable to agree on a ceasefire.

Three sisters who told the BBC about their missing siblings said finding any information from the ICRC, the United Nations or the military was an incredibly frustrating process.

“Please help us, the United Nations, anyone… we are desperate,” Ms Vinta said.

“We appeal to the Sudanese authorities to allow them to call us and hear their voices.

“We ask the army to release them, these are innocent young people who left their country hoping to reach a safe destination in South Sudan.”