Senegal police dismantle human traffic network

Dakar. (NMG) Senegalese police have arrested eight persons linked to a human trafficking network between Africa and the Middle East, the media reported.

The Libération daily newspaper in Dakar reported that police were pursuing a Mauritanian and Moroccan in connection with the crime organised in Senegal.

Those already arrested include two unnamed brothers from the same family in Dakar and were helping police with investigations, the sources said Monday.

Millions of dollars

The Mauritanians and Moroccans were said to be the ringleaders of the human trafficking network they run across West Africa.

Sources said the network generates millions of dollars paid upfront from potential clients in homes and industries across the Arab world.

Once in the Middle East, the clandestine passengers were handed over to the employers who in most cases did not pay them a salary while others were “treated as slaves”.

Awaiting trial

Early this month, a Senegalese woman allegedly stabbed her employer’s wife to death in Saudi Arabia during an altercation and was still being held in a Saudi jail awaiting trial.

Last week, about 600 Senegalese were left stranded at a social centre after Saudi immigration routed them from various points in the country.

Among them was a popular comedian affectionately called Bébé Aicha, who expressed regrets on national television last week.

Inhuman conditions

She acknowledged having been subjected to inhuman conditions like many of her compatriots, working from dusk to dawn and even late in the night, “and paid coins with no access to phones”.

Sources said Senegal and the Saudi Arabia were handling the issue at the diplomatic level.