SHAFAQNA- Press TV: Sudanese lawyers announced on Monday that legal measures had been taken against a number of travel agencies purportedly collaborating with a security firm based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in “deception of the Sudanese youth and their transfer to Libya.”
“We have adopted legal actions against those travel agencies in Khartoum. We have requested the Chief Justice of Sudan (Nemat Abdullah Khair) to pursue the Emirati firm Black Shield in accordance with the international law,” Arabic-language Sudan Tribune newspaper quoted Sulaiman Al-Jadi, the representative of the lawyers, as saying at a news conference.
Jadi further noted that the tragedy, which young Sudanese men are experiencing, falls within the scope of cross-border crimes. In late January, a Sudanese man called on the country’s transitional government to intervene after his brother was allegedly lured to the UAE and forced into a military training camp.
Abdullah Al-Tayeb Yusuf told Arabic-language and Qatar-based al-Jazeera Mubasher television network that his brother travelled to the UAE after responding to a job advertisement for security guards in the country in October last year. Upon his arrival in the country, however, Yusuf’s brother was apparently forced into a military training camp alongside around 150 others.
“My brother told me that he was trained in the UAE to handle heavy weapons, and he was given the option to either go to Yemen or Libya after they offered him a large sum of money,” Yusuf said. Back in October last year, a United Nations report revealed the presence of a thousand Sudanese militiamen in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
According to the report, the Sudanese paramilitaries were sent in July in order to protect oil infrastructure there, while the main bulk of forces loyal to renegade General Khalifa Haftar continued their assault on the capital Tripoli. Sudanese digital media platform Wakeep later shared images of what it said were samples of contracts offered to young Sudanese men to work as security guards in the UAE by the Black Shield Security Services.
The documents, which could not be independently verified, appear to have been stamped by the Emirati embassy in Khartoum. After being lured to the UAE on false pretenses, the Sudanese men have their phones confiscated before being sent to the Al-Ghayathi training camp, Wakeep claimed.
Moreover, The Guardian published a report last December, disclosing the growing presence of Sudanese mercenaries fighting for both warring parties in Libya. The report put the figure present as at least 3,000. Libya plunged into chaos in 2011, when a popular uprising and a NATO intervention led to the ouster of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his execution by unruly fighters.
The North African country has since been split between two rival administrations based in the east and west amid a conflict drawing increasing involvement from foreign powers. According to the latest UN tally, more than 280 civilians and roughly 2,000 fighters have been killed since Haftar launched his offensive in April to seize Tripoli. An estimated 146,000 Libyans have been displaced.