Summaries

Swedish-Eritrean radio host Meron Estefanos produces her weekly program at home in Stockholm where she broadcast, devoted entirely to the hundreds of Eritrean refugees held hostage in the Egyptian Sinai Desert. The Bedouins kidnap Eritreans making their way to Israel and demand large ransoms from their families. We follow Meron in her attempts to turn the tide by calling the hostages and kidnappers alike during her radio show. The film focuses on the stories of two hostages: A) Hiriyti was pregnant when she got kidnapped. We hear the young woman talking with her husband Amaniel in Tel Aviv, who is doing everything he can to free his wife and their baby from the torture camp. B) The ransom for 20-year-old Timnit has been paid, but her brother haven't heard anything from her since her flight to the Egyptian-Israeli border. The battle for Hiriyti's release and the search for Timnit takes Meron to Sinai. There, she stumbles on the marks left by the many atrocities.—Keren Shayo

Since 2006 when Europe closed its borders, human trafficking has burgeoned in Egypt's Sinai Desert, where Eritrean asylum seekers and refugees heading north to Israel are kidnapped, held hostage and tortured by Bedouin smugglers demanding exorbitant ransoms for their freedom. This powerful documentary intimately follows Swedish-Eritrean journalist Meron Estefanos and her efforts to aid the hostages and their families. From Stockholm she runs a popular online radio show fielding calls for help from Eritrean victims and their relatives. Her activism takes her to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Desert to seek the release of a badly abused young woman held captive with her baby and to search for another who disappeared along the Egyptian-Isreali border after her ransom had been paid.—Anonymous

Live calls from the torture camps in Sinai. The film intimately follows Meron Estefanos, an Eritrean journalist-activist who runs a popular online radio program publishing the stories of the hostages in the torture camps while recording their pleading for help.—Anonymous

Details

Keywords
  • torture
  • f rated
  • refugee
  • sinai peninsula
  • eritrean
Genres
  • Crime
  • War
  • Documentary
Release date Apr 30, 2014
Countries of origin Israel
Language English Arabic Hebrew Tigrigna
Filming locations Israel
Production companies First Hand Films Trabelsi Productions

Box office

Tech specs

Runtime 58m
Color Color
Aspect ratio

Synopsis

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