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Refugees who cannot pay people smugglers 'being sold for organs'

Man arrested for people trafficking opens up to police after shock at the number of migrant deaths

Tuesday 05 July 2016 09:12 BST

A woman looks out of the porthole from aboard the 'Aquarius' rescue vessel after arriving in Sicily, Italy, on Sunday June 25, 2016. A group of more than 650 migrants arrived at port in Messina, Sicily, after being rescued from the Mediterranean Sea in June 2016 (AP)

Migrants who are unable to pay people smugglers for their journey from Africa to Europe are killed for their organs, a former smuggler has said.

Nuredein Wehabrebi Atta, who has been sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in moving migrants, told Italian police that migrants who couldn't pay for journeys across the Meditteranean “were sold for €15,000 to groups, particularly Egyptians, who are equipped for harvesting organs".

His testimony has helped break open a transnational network dedicated to migrant trafficking with Italian police confirming they have detained 38 people suspected of being involved - 25 Eritreans, 12 Ethiopians and one Italian.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the authorities had dealt "a harsh blow" to the criminal network, which used Rome for its financial transactions hub.

Video shows what life would be like if British refugees were fleeing a UK civil war

Palermo police said in a statement that an Eritrean man who was arrested in 2014 collaborated with authorities, providing for the first time "a complete reconstruction of criminal activities" of migrant trafficking involving operations both in North Africa and Italy.

Mr Atta is the first foreigner to be granted witness protection in Italy. He said the shocking number of deaths among migrants attempting to cross the sea is what led him to confess, specifically the death of 360 due to a boat sinking in Lampedusa, though he said he was not involved in the incident.

"The deaths that we were aware of were a small part of it," Mr Atta told police, according to local media. "In Eritrea alone there have been victims in eight out of 10 families."

He said that migrants who can not afford to pay the smugglers are then sold to organ traffickers.

Refugee crisis - in pictures

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A child looks through the fence at the Moria detention camp for migrants and refugees at the island of Lesbos on May 24, 2016.

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

Ahmad Zarour, 32, from Syria, reacts after his rescue by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi, Dodecanese, southeastern Agean Sea

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Syrian migrants holding life vests gather onto a pebble beach in the Yesil liman district of Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, after being stopped by Turkish police in their attempt to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on 29 January 2016.

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

Refugees flash the 'V for victory' sign during a demonstration as they block the Greek-Macedonian border

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Migrants have been braving sub zero temperatures as they cross the border from Macedonia into Serbia.

Refugee crisis - in pictures

A sinking boat is seen behind a Turkish gendarme off the coast of Canakkale's Bademli district on January 30, 2016. At least 33 migrants drowned on January 30 when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece.

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

A general view of a shelter for migrants inside a hangar of the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin, Germany

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Refugees protest behind a fence against restrictions limiting passage at the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Since last week, Macedonia has restricted passage to northern Europe to only Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who are considered war refugees. All other nationalities are deemed economic migrants and told to turn back. Macedonia has finished building a fence on its frontier with Greece becoming the latest country in Europe to build a border barrier aimed at checking the flow of refugees

Refugee crisis - in pictures

A father and his child wait after being caught by Turkish gendarme on 27 January 2016 at Canakkale's Kucukkuyu district

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Migrants make hand signals as they arrive into the southern Spanish port of Malaga on 27 January, 2016 after an inflatable boat carrying 55 Africans, seven of them women and six chidren, was rescued by the Spanish coast guard off the Spanish coast.

Refugee crisis - in pictures

A refugee holds two children as dozens arrive on an overcrowded boat on the Greek island of Lesbos

Refugee crisis - in pictures

A child, covered by emergency blankets, reacts as she arrives, with other refugees and migrants, on the Greek island of Lesbos, At least five migrants including three children, died after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek coastguard said

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Migrants wait under outside the Moria registration camp on the Lesbos. Over 400,000 people have landed on Greek islands from neighbouring Turkey since the beginning of the year

Refugee crisis - in pictures

The bodies of Christian refugees are buried separately from Muslim refugees at the Agios Panteleimonas cemetery in Mytilene, Lesbos

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Macedonian police officers control a crowd of refugees as they prepare to enter a camp after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

A refugee tries to force the entry to a camp as Macedonian police officers control a crowd after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

Refugees are seen aboard a Turkish fishing boat as they arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea from the Turkish coast to Lesbos

Reuters

Refugee crisis - in pictures

An elderly woman sings a lullaby to baby on a beach after arriving with other refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

A man collapses as refugees make land from an overloaded rubber dinghy after crossing the Aegean see from Turkey, at the island of Lesbos

EPA

Refugee crisis - in pictures

A girl reacts as refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

Refugees make a show of hands as they queue after crossing the Greek border into Macedonia near Gevgelija

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

People help a wheelchair user board a train with others, heading towards Serbia, at the transit camp for refugees near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija

AP

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Refugees board a train, after crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, near Gevgelija. Macedonia is a key transit country in the Balkans migration route into the EU, with thousands of asylum seekers - many of them from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia - entering the country every day

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

An aerial picture shows the "New Jungle" refugee camp where some 3,500 people live while they attempt to enter Britain, near the port of Calais, northern France

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

A Syrian girl reacts as she helped by a volunteer upon her arrival from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, after having crossed the Aegean Sea

EPA

Refugee crisis - in pictures

Refugees arrive by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey

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Refugee crisis - in pictures

Beds ready for use for migrants and refugees are prepared at a processing center on January 27, 2016 in Passau, Germany. The flow of migrants arriving in Passau has dropped to between 500 and 1,000 per day, down significantly from last November, when in the same region up to 6,000 migrants were arriving daily.

The number of refugees displaced by conflict was estimated to have reached a global total of 65 million, a record high, at the end of 2015.

An average of 24 people per minute are were displaced last year, the UN said, amounting to 34,000 people per day.

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