Report: Smugglers Stealing Migrants’ Organs

By Renee Ghert-Zand November 4, 2011

Egyptian Bedouin smugglers are reportedly killing African migrants who are attempting to infiltrate into Israel for their organs. More precisely, the Bedouins are drugging migrants who cannot pay their high smuggling fees, opening them up, harvesting their organs, and then leaving them to die in the Sinai.

According to The Jerusalem Post, the Al-Arish-based New Generation Foundation for Human Rights and the EveryOne Group from Italy have found corpses missing organs dumped in wells in the Sinai. They have also photographed bodies in the El-Arish morgue with scars consistent with organ removal.

The Jerusalem Post refers to a CNN report quoting a source that said that mobile clinics with advanced equipment come from a private hospital in Cairo and conduct examinations on the migrants to determine which would be the best sources for healthy organs. Then the surgery is performed on the spot in the middle of the desert. The doctors pay $20,000 and up per organ to the Sawarka tribe.

A report released last February by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel stated that 52 percent of African migrants entering Israel were physically abused while in the Sinai. The situation is likely getting worse due to the lawlessness in the region since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in February.

“It’s like spare parts for cars,” the Bedouin source callously told CNN as he referred to the alleged brutal and murderous illegal trafficking in human organs.

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