By Umaru Fofana
The Senegalese authorities last week dismantled what they refer to as a human trafficking ring just outside the capital, Dakar.
All 87 people nabbed in the operation are Sierra Leoneans – 72 of them young women who were said to be being trafficked to an unnamed Gulf country.
It is not clear to which country exactly or for what. But the Gulf region in the Middle East has for years been a destination for mostly young Sierra Leonean women who go there to serve as domestic workers; but many say they end up becoming sex slaves.
The Senegalese paramilitary say they are part of “a vast network of migrant smuggling” broken up by their Search Brigade.
The commander of the West Gendarmerie, Lt. Col. Ibou Wathie said the operation was successful through weeks of surveillance of two houses in Diamniadio some 30 kilometers in the outskirts of Dakar.
“The traffickers have been bringing girls here from Sierra Leone by road - who pay around $ 700 – transit them through Guinea to send them to the Middle East from here in Senegal” he said.
Lt Col Ibou said that after 20 days of surveillance in collaboration with the local authorities in Pikine, also in the Dakar region, they were able to crack open the network.
Two of the three suspected ringleaders – one of them a Sierra Leonean – are in prison. The third is said to be on the run and their nationality is unknown.
This has been confirmed by Sierra Leone’s Ambassador in Senegal, Alhaji Brima Koroma who said that all 87 were now essentially “under house arrest”, as they were being guarded by Senegalese security forces awaiting repatriation.
He said that after his intervention, the Senegalese authorities agreed to not indict them but rather send them back to Sierra Leone.
Ambassador Koroma said that as soon as the borders reopened – closed due to Covid19 – they would be repatriated for which he said they’d already contacted the International Office for Migration (IOM).
He said he was informed last week that the Faidherbe Police Search Brigade in Dakar had arrested and dismantled a vast network of Sierra Leonean migrants who were either perpetrators or victims of human trafficking in the country.
He said that in October 2019, another group of 17 Sierra Leoneans got detained at Ouakam in Dakar. “These were the first reported victims. The Embassy was able to repatriate them accompanied by one of the Embassy staff. The Trans Organised Crime Unit, the Office of National Security and the Ministry of Social Welfare were all informed at the time” he said.
In March this year, he went on, 23 others were arrested in Nguekhor, in the region of Mbour about 300 km from Dakar.
Amb. Koroma said that initial were that the network of traffickers operates on three Levels: in Sierra Leone where they recruit; the second phase involves the victims being transported by road through Guinea to Senegal where the agent provides accommodation and necessary documentation with the help of another agent who resides in the Gulf Countries. The last level is eventually flying them to the Middle East with the connivance of some agents through the Blaise Diagne International Airport in Dakar.
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