Unspecified armed gangs based in eastern Sudan have abducted 91 Eritrean migrants, ‘Radio Erena’, a Paris-based Eritrean independent radio station, reported.

According to a report Radio Erena received from ‘The Eritrean Initiative on Refugee Rights’ (EIRR), a NGO based in Sweden which advocates for Eritrean refugees, the migrants, including 11 unaccompanied children and 25 women, were abducted while crossing from Ethiopia into eastern Sudan.

Armed gangs from the Rashida tribes, who are widely blamed for the systematic abduction of Eritrean refugees from Sudan, are among the suspects in connection with last week’s abductions.

“The abductees are asked by their kidnappers to pay about $2,000 each for their release,” some family members of the victims told EIRR.

Eritrean migrants entering Sudan via Ethiopia often fall into the hands of armed groups, and these groups usually order the victims to pay huge amounts of money for their safe release.

Reports from the International Organization for Migration indicate that most irregular migrants in Sudan are from Eritrea and Ethiopia.

The 2016 US “Trafficking in Persons Report” shows that African irregular migrants in Sudan are highly vulnerable to sex trafficking, abduction and forced labour in Sudan, citing examples of kidnapping of Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants from east Sudan who are transferred to other countries for blackmailing and extortion for ransom.