Issue No. 140

Human Trafficker Kidane Rearrested

On New Year’s Day, the Director General of the UAE’s Federal Anti- Narcotics Department and Interpol announced the arrest in Sudan of Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam, reportedly one of the world’s most brutal and wanted human traffickers. Kidane was detained in a joint international operation led by the UAE, where he was wanted for money laundering among other offenses.

Kidane is also wanted by the Netherlands, whose National Prosecutor’s Office had offered on 11 October 2022 a €20,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. A European task force was later established to search for him. Dutch authorities have not spoken about the reward since his arrest, but it’s expected that Kidane will be extradited by the UAE to stand trial in the Netherlands.

Kidane, an Eritrean national, was first arrested in February 2020 in Ethiopia. It was during one of his regular visits that one of his victims recognised him on the street. Kidane was also a frequent traveller to Dubai, through which he passed finances. He tried several times to escape his Ethiopian jail. On one occasion he had planned to ingest a drug to force his evacuation by an ambulance, reportedly to be driven by his accomplices, sources confirmed. The sources added that Kidane also repeatedly asked to change cells. Later, on or about 15 February 2021, Kidane, who was scheduled for trial in Addis Ababa, escaped; he had bribed a corrupt officer. Kidane was then tried in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment. Yet Kidane’s victims and other complainants were not satisfied that justice had been served, and they also feared reprisals, reported the Middle East Eye in April 2021. So, his latest arrest therefore offers some relief to them.

Kidane’s network remains sprawling. He was previously able to take refuge in Sudan, where Eritrean gangs remain active. Reports by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea have previously linked the human traffickers to Eritrean generals. These gangs reportedly sell anything that brings in money, including smuggled goods and people. Kidane’s network reportedly controls the migrant exodus route from the Horn of Africa to Libya. Kidane himself reportedly owns several warehouses, notably in Libya’s Bani Walid region, where thousands of people are believed to be held hostage after fleeing Eritrea, victims told the Middle East Eye. Traffickers have taken advantage of political chaos in Libya. Kidane’s grip on so many has been so strong that he continued to run his business from his cell in Ethiopia via mobile phone; it is said that his number remained active after his escape until the day he was rearrested.

Eritrean youth are trapped. The country’s governing People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) party appears to benefit from human trafficking. Young people are summoned to Sawa base at the age of 16 for indefinite military service under inhumane conditions. The only option for some families to survive is to turn to smugglers. Whatever the European populists may say, Eritrean migrants have few alternatives at home; they turn to illegal channels because they have no other options. For them, there is no legal path to immigration.

What happens to Eritreans in warehouses run by Kidane and his associates defies comprehension: forced detention, rape, torture, starvation, killings. One aim of this dehumanising treatment is to further extort payments from the families of victims. For traffickers, human beings are just commodities, young Eritreans do not come to Europe to replace Europeans, as some claim. They have no plan except to survive. Those responsible for their sad plight are in power in Asmara.

Kidane’s downfall may seem like cutting the head off the hydra. However, the very finances of traffickers and their protectors across the Horn of Africa may in the end bring them down. Money circulates; it is ultimately traceable. Even when financial schemes are complex, forensic investigators are astute in tracing transactions to their owners. The saga of Kidane will at the very least cast a shadow on the financial systems of Horn countries, at the best it will contribute to the dismantling of a trafficking network. But this will only be true if regional governments commit to coordinate with one another.

By the Ethiopia Cable Team