Sade | My Site

Sade's story, written by her father

I was born in 1977 in Ksad Emba, Eritrea. I grew up and completed primary school in Medere. I did not have the chance to get more education. I got married in 1998 to Brkti Berhe. I am the father of five children. In 1993 I went to Abha, Saudi Arabia, illegally to work in construction and later as a driver to make an income to help my parents in Eritrea and myself. My parents are farmers but they could not make enough income from farming. The Saudi authorities discovered in 1996 I had no work permit and I was deported to Eritrea by ship. The Saudis took me from Abha to Jeddah and from here I was shipped to the Eritrean port of Masawa. I was immediately arrested by Eritrean authorities and sent for three months to prison in Aligidir on the Eritrean Sudanese border because I had violated the 1994 Eritrean proclamation that obliged every citizen to join the National Service. While in prison we had to do forced labor in the cotton fields. At the end of the second month in Aligidir I got into a car accident. I broke my right arm. The wound was cleaned but I received no further medical care and I was sent to the Sawa Military Training Center within a group that was labeled the fifth round trainees. Today Eritrea is working with the 33rd round of trainees. I received six months military training, including firearms use, after which I was sent to Senafe to work with the local administration. I worked for about one year and six months in a section to prevent citizens from smuggling and selling products illegally. Due to the war with Ethiopia the country has become militarized. The government says that it’s citizens are supposed to serve for one year and eight months, however they can extend this for your whole life.

However in 1998, it was broadcast that there would be an end to my military service, so I was planning to get married on January 10. I met my wife in my town through our families. However when I went to leave the military, they continued to hold me and they refused to send me back home. So I made my own decision and went home, traveling about seven kilometers to get married. We were married in an Orthodox church and then we came home to celebrate with our two families. After two weeks of being married, I was caught moving without a permit paper, that would have permitted my release from the military for a certain amount of time and I was jailed for about ten days. They took me from my house and questioned me and warned me not to leave the national service again. Then I was taken back to work with the local administration in Sanafi.

It is our tradition that a husband spends one month with his wife and family after they are married, but I was forced to go back to work and this was very hard for me. My voice was not heard as I had no choice in my work, and I was only paid 150 Eritrean nakfa, which was often cut to 110 arbitrarily. In March of 1998, I decided to return to Saudi Arabia illegally to work. With the help of smugglers, to whom I paid 800 ERN, I travelled on a boat of around seventy people to Jeddah from where I returned to Abha where I had worked before. There I found work in construction during the day time and at night as a driver. I stayed in Saudi Arabia until 2002 when the government found me, while doing checks for residency permits and I was deported by plane from Jeddah back to Eritrea.

Back in Eritrea I was sent to the obligatory national military training in Mai Seraw near Segeneiti. I had three weeks of military training and then was assigned to Division 15, an agricultural branch which was based at Tserona. Though I was sent there by the government, I was working there for military leaders personally, on a private farm for more than five years. During this time, the pay was so low that I was not able to feed my family. Things went on like this for years and I became hopeless and restless as I tried to get an exemption from the National Service. At end of 2006, I was given a ten day exemption to see my family, but then they took me back to work. The next year in March 2007 I was allowed to see my family members again. However in April that year I decided to escape to Ethiopia to escape the dictatorial regime leaving my beloved family members behind.

I walked across the border, at night, spending a day hiding from the military, and was very lucky as the border is mountainous and has land mines. I arrived in Erob, Ethiopia and my brother, who at the time was in Saudi Arabia paid for me to be smuggled to Sudan. I was taken in a bus, and was taken to the Shagarab refugee camp in Sudan. The refugee camp was not safe, as there were informers from the Eritrean government, and life was very harsh in the camp. Though I was afraid of smugglers because there were a lot of rumors that claim smugglers selling immigrants to groups that need their body parts, I wanted to end my suffering in the camp after two months, and so I found smugglers who would take me to Egypt. My brother paid 800 USD for me to be smuggled to Egypt. I went by a four wheel drive through the Sudanese desert to Aswan. From Aswan we took a third class train from Aswan to Cairo. At the time I did not know about the UNHCR in Cairo, and I wanted to go to Israel because of the work opportunities there. I crossed through the Sinai dessert, which was a very dangerous crossing as there are military towers and soldiers who shoot at those trying to cross. It cost 800 USD to cross to Israel, which my brother paid again. I worked in construction in Tel Aviv, earning about 2000 USD a month.

Back in Eritrea, as a result of me fleeing the country, the government administration in my village closed all my files. They halted all services to my family saying that they were the family of a traitor. My wife then decided to cross the border illegally, in 2009, with our children. I paid for my wife and children to be taken to Ethiopia and then for my wife to go to Israel, leaving our children with an aunt in Addis Ababa. She was taken through a similar route, but she was caught by the Egyptian border police on her way to Israel in Sinai and imprisoned for four months. This was a horrific experience as she was helpless, hopeless and depressed. After this, having no passport or identification, she told the Egyptian government that she was Ethiopian and was deported back to Ethiopia, where the government sent her to Mai-Ayni refugee camp. She went back to Egypt with smugglers, which I paid for again from Israel. However, she was caught again and this time imprisoned for one year and nine months in Qanater prison, north of Cairo, where she faced health problems, and contracted Tuberculosis. When the government found out about her health issues she was again deported to Ethiopia.

Because of this, I left Israel by plane and went to Ethiopia to look after my family. I was allowed to enter Ethiopia as an Eritrean as I had a permit from the Embassy because of my wife’s sickness. I was able to take my wife to a health center, and she took some time to recover from her sickness. Finally in March 2012 we went to South Sudan, as there was not much work for us as Eritreans in Ethiopia. We crossed without documents, and I was able to work for two years in Juba in a shop buying and selling common goods, like sawdust, rice and sugar, to help my children. However in 2014 the conflict in South Sudan erupted and we had to escape to Uganda. We traveled from Juba to Yei and then over the border to Koboko and made our way to Kampala.

In Kampala, I bought a taxi car with my savings from Israel and I worked as a driver. I took people to the airport as well as students to school. We stayed for three years there, but we soon had a protection problem. When my daughter was born in 2015 we wanted her to get baptized. However, the Eritrean Orthodox church in Kampala needed a baptism certificate from me and my wife in order to baptize Rozael. The church asked whether or not we were Eritrean and the Eritrean community told us to go to the Embassy. I went to the Embassy and was told that I had to pay two percent of my earnings and I needed to sign a letter saying that Eritrea is a peaceful, and free country in order to obtain the needed document for baptism. However the Eritrean Embassy workers would decide what “two percent” of my earnings meant, after I would sign the letter, meaning that they could make the amount as high as they wanted. Because of this I did not sign the letter, as well as on the principle that I knew that Eritrea was not a free country. Instead we baptized our daughter in the Ethiopian Orthodox church in Kampala. However, after this, we couldn't live freely in Uganda because of the Embassy of Eritrea. People started following me after I had refused to sign the documents.

Because of this we planned to go to back to Ethiopia to our relatives even though there wasn’t very much work. We left in 2017, but we got stuck in Juba for twelve days because of the conflict in South Sudan, however in Juba we found smugglers who could help us get to Khartoum. We went to Wau and then to Aweil, going west to get away from where the army was fighting. We crossed the dessert, and we had friends in Khartoum who told the smugglers where to drop us off. We spent April of 2017 in Khartoum, and then decided to go to Egypt, as my wife had heard in the refugee camps about the UNHCR in Egypt. We were smuggled through the dessert again in a four wheel drive from Khartoum to Aswan and then by train to Cairo. This cost $1500 which we had from the car that I had sold in Uganda.

We arrived in Cairo on May 18, 2017 and went to the UNHCR Office to register. We first lived in Ard El Lewa, but we moved to Maadi because we felt insecure in Ard El Lewa. Within the Eritrean community there are spies that work for the regime and they threatened us on the telephone. I think that someone tipped the embassy, because most men do not make it out of Eritrea so we attract attention. Because of this we moved to Hadayek el-Maadi.

In January of 2018, I was robbed by Egyptians in a tuk tuk to catch a bus from Maadi on my way to the UNHCR office to correct something. They took my phone and documents, and then in May they came back to try to sell the documents back to me for 1000 EGP, and grabbed one of my daughters from me as I was taking them to school and I was forced to give them money. I saw them again in November at a market but I was able to get away from them. I think that they have connections to Eritrean spies. I have reported about all these problems and incidents that occurred to me to the UNHCR office. But, I didn't get any practical and logical solution from the UNHCR, except giving me advice to change my telephone number or residence area. This is not yet solved, and I am waiting for the Lord to intervene.

In Egypt, our life is difficult, and we are still suffering, my wife especially because of her traumatic experiences. Due to her imprisonment, for more than two years in Egypt, she has psychological stress, and she has been taking medication from an MSF clinic for two years; the UNHCR pays for the medication. However, she is still suffering up to this date despite all these two years of medication, and has not fully recovered.

My children go to school with Africa Hope, Good Shepherd and the CAWU-Learning Center. I have two children at Africa Hope which is 2400 EGP a year for each one and one at Good Shepherd which is 4000 EGP a year. Part of the reason why we came to Maadi is that we wanted English speaking schools. In the past there was some ability to study in Sudan, but my children have not had much chance for education. We receive support from my brother who is now in Israel through the Hawala system as well as Catholic Relief Service who gives us 1000 EGP per person for school fees, Caritas give 1800 EGP/month, and a Coptic Orthodox Deaconess brings us sometimes some food. My wife cannot go out alone as she has a lot of fear, and I am also not currently working. In summary, at this time due to the health of my wife as well as safety issues, I want to help my kids in particular with their education, but we are in a difficult situation.