The Arab Slave Trade Continues

We may be witnessing a throwback to the Arab slave trade in the Sinai desert:

Two hundred and fifty Eritrean and Sudanese migrants are waiting for the right moment to cross over Egypt's border with Israel, Egyptian paper AlMasri AlYoum reported Tuesday. They are currently with traffickers in the Sinai desert, an Egyptian security source said.


While the report does not indicate the ethnicity of the traffickers, it can safely be assumed that they are local Bedouins.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has said that the traffickers are harassing the migrants and keeping them in containers--possibly metal shipping containers--and are demanding a ransom of $8000 from the relatives of each person in order to release them.

If true, the report could be seen as a throwback to the centuries-long Arab tradition of trading in African slaves, which is believed to have begun in the 8th century and continued into the 19th. Arabs settled along the African coast of the Indian Ocean and traded in slaves and ivory. They married local women, thus giving rise to the Swahili tribe, whose language - a mixture of Arabic and the local Bantu language - became the lingua franca of East Africa.

Actually, there are indications that the Arab slave trade has not stopped in the 19th century, but has instead continued into the 21st century.

Technorati Tag: Arab Slave Trade.