{"id":1728,"date":"2015-05-06T17:25:39","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T17:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitederitreamedia.com\/blog12\/?p=1728"},"modified":"2015-05-06T17:25:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T17:25:39","slug":"young-african-migrants-caught-in-trafficking-machine-by-david-d-kirkpatrickmay-5-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitederitreamedia.com\/blog12\/2015\/05\/06\/young-african-migrants-caught-in-trafficking-machine-by-david-d-kirkpatrickmay-5-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Young African Migrants Caught in Trafficking Machine By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICKMAY 5, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Efrem Fitwi, left; Hermon Angosom, center; and Filimon Burust at a detention center in Zawiyah, Libya, last month.<\/span> Credit<\/span>Tyler Hicks\/The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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ZAWIYAH, Libya \u2014 The no-money-down offer was too tempting for the children to resist.<\/p>\n

Smugglers had offered the boys and girls transportation out of the refugee camps along the Eritrean border, across the African deserts and the Mediterranean Sea, to a new life in Europe. There, they could quickly win asylum and bring along their parents, the smugglers assured them. Payment could come later.<\/p>\n

By the time the smugglers had conveyed the boys and girls to Libya<\/a>, however, the offer had become an ultimatum. The children, some as young as 8, called their parents to relay a demand from the smugglers for more than $3,200. For parents, failure to send the money meant abandoning their sons and daughters to the chaos of Libya.<\/p>\n

Zackarias Hilo, 19, the oldest of about 40 Eritrean boys held by the authorities here at the time of a recent visit, said his father had initially exclaimed that he was too poor to pay. \u201cThen I am dead!\u201d Zackarias replied.<\/p>\n