It was early October, recalls Mr. Zerasion, a 35-year-old refugee
from the tiny African country of Eritrea who emigrated here five years
ago but had been forced to leave his family behind. Escaping the country
with her uncle, his 14-year-old daughter, Samhar, had tried to follow a
similar path to freedom. But the two had vanished in August and
kidnappers had contacted Mr. Zerasion's brother in Tel Aviv, demanding
$80,000 for their lives.
In this world, he knew that the smugglers, a linked network of
nomadic North African tribes, had become more sophisticated and cruel
with Eritrean refugees, requiring many to leave pleas on answering
machines, as his daughter had. "I was scared," he says. "Many people are
(held) four or five months in Sinai. We see on the Internet the bodies,
no food, no medication. They die."
