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Gunmen abduct 14 Eritrean asylum seekers in eastern Sudan

Xinhua, June 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Gunmen on Thursday abducted 14 Eritrean asylum seekers in eastern Sudan, said United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

"Based on information from the Sudanese authorities, gunmen attacked a UNHCR convoy transporting 49 asylum seekers to a refugee camp and abducted 14 of them," said Nicolas Brass, UNHCR spokesman in a statement.

"The authorities informed us with the kidnapping of a number of Eritrean asylum seekers on the road between Kassala town and Shegarab refugee camp," he noted.

Six of the kidnapped were minors, including 2 girls, in addition to 8 women, said the UNHCR, pointing out that six other persons were slightly injured when they tried to flee during the attack.

There are large numbers of Eritrean refugees in Sudan where hundreds of them attempt monthly to cross the borders between the two countries in order to reach Europe.

Shegarab camp, some 409 km east of the capital Khartoum, accommodates around 15,000 refugees, most of them are Eritrean asylum seekers.

Gangsters in eastern Sudan are active in human trafficking and smuggling of Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees into the Sudanese territories, where all the official Sudanese efforts failed to end the phenomenon. Endit