Human traffic

Journalist Glen Johnson with his mother Lin before his trip. Photo / Supplied

No one speaks as we drive slowly through the north eastern African desert, 30 of us crammed on the back of a truck. A small boy, his eyes wide and frightened, stands wedged between the cab of the truck and the crush of bodies around him.

A man lifts the child, his spindly legs sticking out from the bottoms of his trousers, and places him on the truck's cab. Now he is squeezed beside me and three other men, his head of coarse black curls swaying from side to side as the truck grinds its way through the darkness. The boy is from Mogadishu. He and his brother are on a desperate mission to try by any means to escape Africa and a hopeless life.

They, like so many others, are trying to get to the South Yemen desert. The Kharaz refugee camp there, administered by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), offers them hope. The boy's brother tells me, "There is food and a house. They [UNHCR] give money."

In the distance the beam of a lighthouse sweeps the night sky. The silhouettes of thorn shrubs, bent by the wind, show under a yellow moon ill-defined from the constant dust and sand. In the darkness, the truck's headlights pick out the silhouette of figures, standing or sitting huddled in groups.

The whites of their eyes gleam in the headlights' glare as they stare at the truck. Like my fellow passengers, they are men, women and children from Ethiopia and Somalia, leaving their respective countries for the dream of a new life in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

Our driver yells that another vehicle will be on its way soon to drive them a little closer towards the promised land. Occasionally the truck grinds to a halt when the shifting mass of human cargo threatens to unbalance it. Men get out of the cab swinging sticks wildly at the passengers, telling them to keep still.

After an hour, we arrive at a small ravine somewhere near Ras Bir on Djibouti's eastern shore. The passengers tumble off the back of the truck and begin walking, one after the other in single file, disappearing into the dark towards the beach. I head in a different direction, across terrain that is part sand and part volcanic rock. After a kilometre I hunker down under scrub in a wadi. It is nearly 4am.

I sleep for a couple of hours and am woken by the heat of a half-risen sun. I clamber up the banks of the wadi and peer out. From here I can see what I have come to witness, the collection of desperate humans clambering into boats for the 35km, two-hour journey across the water between Djibouti and Yemen, linking the Red Sea to the Gulf Of Aden.

The sea is perfectly calm. A white sand beach is edged with mud flats. In the distance I can see several hundred people and seven pick-up trucks.

On a small incline overlooking the beach, a group of Affar tribesmen stand watching, overseeing the operation.

Five small, fibreglass boats, no more than 15m long, sit waiting. Each will carry 40 people across the Bab al-Mandab - the Gate of Grief - the stretch of water that will link these people with a new life.

Two days earlier I spoke to a human trafficker, Hussein, in Obock, the sweltering and rotting Djiboutian shantytown which acts as one of the main departure points for human trafficking operations.

He sat chewing qat, occasionally picking wax from his ears with the plant's green stalk. He told me traffickers usually use fast fibreglass boats that make daily trips.

"If a lot of people are coming, I call to the man with the big boat in Yemen to take 60, maybe more, people." Hussein, a father of two, has worked on the boats for 10 years. He makes good money for a single crossing to Yemen - US$150 for Somalis and US$200 for Ethiopians.

"In Djibouti there is no job, I have no job for long time. The people are coming with money saying, 'take us to Yemen'. I cannot resist the money."

The crossing carries risks, but he insists it is safer than the other main trafficking hub, Bosaso in the Puntland, north-eastern Somalia. The trip from Bosaso to Yemen usually takes two days. But often the passengers making this trip are forced out of the boat a few kilometres off the coast of Yemen. Many don't make the swim to shore. Sometimes the overloaded boats capsize and the refugees face the risk of rape, shootings and murder at the hands of the traffickers.

According to the UNHCR, 89 people drowned in January and February this year after being forced off boats that had departed from the Puntland. Many of their bodies washed up on the shores of Yemen beaches.

"We do not do this," Hussein tells me. "We give to the people water and food. We take them all the way to Yemen." I wait in the wadi for an hour, watching people file on to the boats which leave every 15 minutes.

Gradually the Affar leave and one of the smugglers approaches, signalling me to come. I, too, am to make this journey across the Gulf of Aden. Nearly 50 people are crammed into the boat, essentially a fishing dhow. Row after row of people are squeezed next to each other. The boat sets off, heading north-east.

A young man from Ethiopia, his forehead covered in a line of 10 faded blue tattoos depicting the cross, says there is no work in his country. In Saudi Arabia he will have everything, like his friend in Riyadh, he says.

"Ethiopia is a very big country. I have no job and no monies. I calling to my friend and he says about his big house and big car. I say I must go, go, go." He has little money, but is carrying a significant amount of hasheesh, which he plans to sell in Saudi Arabia. Other people on the boat have bottles of vodka, which they will sell to Yemeni bootleggers to pay for the rest of the trip to Saudi.

Those who cannot afford to pay for a vehicle will attempt the journey on foot. There's no doubt that the trafficking trade is conducted with the knowledge, if not complicity, of the region's governments and authorities. Corruption is endemic and the human trafficking trade lucrative.

In the case of human trafficking, government-level involvement appears minimal. The secret police almost certainly maintain contact with traffickers - if not having a presence on the boats - to establish who is on board. Given the lack of economic opportunities in Yemen and Djibouti, governments and local authorities will not significantly disrupt the trade and so incur the wrath of the tribes and people profiting from what amounts to a multi-million-dollar-a-year industry.

One source in Djibouti told me he had witnessed a transaction of 45,000 Djiboutian francs ($305) to the head of a nearby naval base, through a mobile phone-based money transfer provider called MobiCash.

According to a 2010 Chatham House report - Yemen and Somalia: Terrorism, Shadow Networks and the Limitations of State-building - the Horn of Africa smuggling trade, based on the number of registered arrivals in Yemen in 2009 (77,800) could be worth more than US$20 million each year.

The report states: "This 'migration economy' constitutes a lucrative regional network that acts as a powerful disincentive to formally regulated border controls."

The spray from the boat's bow breaking the water splashes into the boat. People wrap scarves around their heads to protect themselves and their children from the sun and spray. A man at the back of the boat uses a bucket to bail water. A distant boat approaches at speed. Three men are aboard, two of them with AK-47s already raised. The boat's captain pulls back on the throttle just as his vessel slams into the dhow, rocking dangerously.

The captain begins screaming. Then he gets down to business and announces that they are the Djiboutian police. It is time to pay up, 100 Djiboutian francs (68c) each. They circle our boat six times, guns levelled, while people rummage through their belongings to find money.

One of the men, dressed in a white singlet and cargo shorts, sunglasses resting atop his head, says he is a police officer.

"You think we are pirates? Do you want to go back to Djibouti?"

They collect the money from the boat's navigator and speed off, a squat man blowing a kiss to a terrified Ethiopian woman.

On the Yemen shore the boat passengers walk quickly across a rocky plateau and into the desert. Two pick-up trucks arrive and people are quickly loaded onboard. We drive for two hours in daylight, down a main road, past Kharaz refugee camp and on to a series of sandy back-roads. We arrive at what is essentially a staging camp for the onward journey through Hodeidah, Sa'dah and into Saudi Arabia.

The beatings begin around 10am the next morning. As darkness fell on the night we arrived, the smugglers - all Yemenis - became increasingly hostile. The traffickers have been promised money to continue the journey and they want it now. The beatings go on, those wet packing sounds. Each blow is closely followed by a high-pitched wail.

The camp is perched on a rocky outcrop on a small hill surrounded by walls built up from gathered rock. It is divided into two sections: one for those who have money and the other for those who do not. It is guarded by at least 15 gunmen.

A man is on his knees in the dirt in front of one the Yemeni smugglers who is slapping him across the face. The blows turn from slaps to punches and by the end of it, the man lies bloodied and semi-conscious on the ground at the trafficker's feet.

About 60 people sit under a large UNHCR tent, spread as a canopy above them. Four men with sticks circle the group, while a group of men with AK-47s stand nearby.

The beatings vary in intensity and go on for at least eight hours. The wails and cries go on all day. I sit on a rock overlooking the camp, some of the smugglers' children sitting curiously with me, watching and bug-eyed. One of them says "f*****g habashee" (habashee is a derogatory term). The Somalis and Ethiopians have promised money to the traffickers for the onward trip to Saudi Arabia and for the transit inland to the staging point. Traffickers move from one person to the next, initially hitting softly while saying in Arabic: "How will you get my money?" Then the blows come down harder as the trafficker yells for payment.

The victim is dragged off to a group of men with mobile phones. They get one phone call, before being returned to the huddle of people, awaiting another beating.

A man from Somalia breaks down under a volley of blows, weeping and screaming and begging.

A young Ethiopian woman, wearing a bright-green hijab, sits with a trafficker, whispering in her ear. Her head is lowered as the man whispers back to her.

He stands up, pressing his stick against her forehead, forcing her head back. He asks her how she will get him his money. Her head drops back down and she says nothing. He moves around behind her.

He is dripping with sweat and yelling. Then in huge arcs he begins hitting her across the back. The woman sits, her body rocking under the blows. He hits her more than 20 times.

By nightfall people sit in a group, traumatised. Some have managed to get money sent from friends or family members and will be transported to Hodeidah that night. Others will be set loose to fend for themselves or, more likely, handed in to the police.

My boat's navigator - who goes by the name of Mohammed Ali - enters the camp and sits on a ledge above the group.

Some men bring him food, water and chai. He makes jokes about "habashee". Everyone is laughing. A man leans forward and lights Mohammed's cigarette for him.

He keeps making jokes while people run around after him. He is introduced to the Ethiopian woman in the green hijab. A Somali man leans forward, his eyes shining bright and desperate under a lamp suspended above the camp.

He says: "Please help me. I have very dangerous problem."

The Ethiopian woman is led out of the camp with a man.

And Mohammed makes more jokes, and everyone is laughing.

Next week, Glen Johnson writes about his time in a Yemeni jail. His story also features on 60 Minutes, on TV3, next weekend.