A Ukrainian woman was kidnapped in the middle of the desert during a routine tourist vacation in Egypt and sold to a local clan for $5,000, where she spent five years, gave birth to four children, and lived as a slave until her husband found her through an informant within the tribe. Andrey and Yulia lived in one of the regional centers in eastern Ukraine.
He worked as an engineer at a local enterprise and as an accountant in a private firm. We met at university. They got married a year after graduation and lived together for 8 years until the moment that changed everything. They did not have children, although they both wanted them, but put them off due to financial issues. Life was standard for their social level.
An apartment with a mortgage, a car on credit, and vacations once a year to affordable countries. Egypt was a logical choice for a March vacation. Warmth, sea, affordable prices, direct charter flights from the regional center. They bought a ticket through a local travel agency. It was a typical package tour.
Flight, hotel on the first line in Hurghada. All meals included, several excursions to choose from. The cost for two was around $400, which was within their budget. The flight was scheduled for early March 2018. They took off in the morning and arrived in the middle of the day local time. The transfer from the airport to the hotel went without any problems.
The first three days were spent in the usual way: beach, pool, visiting local shops and cafes. Yulia took pictures of everything and posted them on social media. Andrey spent more time by the sea. On the fourth day they decided to take an excursion into the desert. This was one of the most popular offers among tour operators.
Quad biking, visit to a Bedouin village, dinner under the stars, return in the evening. The price for two was $80, which seemed reasonable. They signed up through the hotel guide. They were included in a group with twelve other tourists. The group was international. Three Russians, a married couple from Belarus, two girls from Poland, four Germans and them.
The departure was planned for the morning. Return at 8:00 pm. The bus picked them up from the hotel in the morning. The driver and the guide spoke broken English and Russian. The route was standard. Departure from the tourist area of Hurghada into the depths of the desert, where a Bedouin settlement adapted for tourists was located.
There they were shown traditional tents, offered a camel ride, and given the chance to try local bread and tea. Then they took us on quad bikes through the sand dunes. Everything was organized in such a way that tourists felt authenticity, but without any real risk. The only problem was the hot day, but everyone was warned to drink more water.
The program ended at 6:00 p.m. The group returned to the bus for the trip back to the hotel. The journey was expected to take about an hour. However, half an hour after departure, the bus began to behave erratically. The driver stopped on the side of the road. It turned out that one of the main engine components had failed .
The driver and his companion tried to do something under the hood, but it quickly became clear that the problem could not be solved on the spot. The guide called the company that organized the tour. The answer was standard. They will send a replacement bus, but it will take at least 2 hours since they need to arrange a car and driver, and round trip travel.
The tourists got off the bus. It was already about 1:00 p.m. The sun was setting and the temperature was dropping. The stopping place was in the middle of the road connecting the tourist area with the interior. The road was not a motorway, but rather a two-lane highway with poor quality asphalt. There were few cars passing by.
Some had a connection, some didn’t [music] . Depends on the operator. Yulia managed to write to her friend that they were stuck on the road and would have to wait. Andrey took a photo of a broken bus with a caption about his adventures in the desert. After an hour of waiting, when it was already completely dark, part of the group began to get nervous.
The Germans suggested walking to the nearest settlement, which, according to the guide, was several kilometers away in the direction of Hurghada. The guide said it was better to stay by the bus and wait for help, but four Germans and two Polish girls decided to go anyway. Yulia and Andrey hesitated at first, but then decided to join those who were going.
Another Russian couple also went. Only eight people walked along the road towards the coast. It was uncomfortable to walk. The road had no lighting . Some tourists had flashlights on their phones, but they weren’t bright enough . They walked along the side of the road, hoping to be noticed by passing drivers.
During the half-hour walk, one truck passed by, but did not stop. [music] The group began to doubt the correctness of the decision. We discussed whether to return to the bus, but the road back seemed long, so we decided to continue. After another 20 minutes we heard the sound of a motor approaching from behind.
We turned around and saw headlights. It was a pickup truck. The group positioned themselves so that the car would notice them and start waving its arms. The pickup truck slowed down and stopped nearby. There were four men in traditional clothing sitting in the back. There are two more in the cabin. One of the passengers in the cabin got out, approached the group, spoke in Arabic, then switched to English, and asked what had happened.
They explained to him about the broken bus. He said something to his men, then offered to take them to the nearest settlement, from where they could call or wait for help. The Germans agreed immediately. Polish girls too. The Russian couple hesitated, but then decided that it was better to drive than to walk for an unknown distance.
Andrey and Yulia also agreed. All eight tourists were loaded into the back of a pickup truck. There was little space. We had to stand or sit on the sides. The pickup truck started moving. At first we drove along the road in the same direction as the tourists. A few minutes later, the pickup truck turned off the main road onto a dirt side road.
One of the Germans asked where they were going. The driver said that this was a shorter route to the settlement. The dirt road was narrow and uneven. The pickup truck was shaking. After another 10 minutes, the pickup truck stopped. The men in the back stood up and took out their weapons. These were machine guns and pistols. The tourists began to panic.
One of the Polish girls screamed. The men started shouting in Arabic. They gestured for everyone to be quiet and not move. The tourists were forced to get out of the pickup truck and stand in a line on the sand. They took all the phones and bags. documents, checked the contents, took money and valuables.
Then they started dividing the tourists; the Germans and the Russian couple were taken aside, as were the Polish girls. Julia was captured separately. Andrey tried to intervene, but one of the armed men hit him on the head with a rifle butt. He fell on the sand. Julia screamed and tried to break free, but they held her tightly.
Andrey was hit several more times. He lost consciousness. When I came to, my head was splitting with pain and my nose was bleeding. Julia was not around. The other tourists also disappeared. There were two men standing nearby who were speaking Arabic. Andrey tried to get up, but he was pushed again.
After some time, he was dragged back into the pickup truck, driven several kilometers along a dirt road, and dumped on the side of an asphalt road. He lay on the side of the road for about an hour until a car passed. The driver stopped and called the police. Andrey was taken to the nearest police station. There he tried to explain what had happened.
The police recorded his statement, but the response was slow. He was sent to the hospital. He had a concussion, bruises, and a broken nose. They kept him in the hospital for 24 hours. Then the police returned and asked more questions. Andrey asked about Yulia and other tourists. He was told that an investigation was underway.
We contacted the travel company. It turned out that the rest of the group, who remained at the bus, safely returned to the hotel on a replacement vehicle. The company only learned about the disappearance of eight tourists who had left on foot when they were no longer at the hotel. The police organized a search. We checked the section of the road where the group was walking.
We found several personal belongings scattered in the desert off the road. But the tourists themselves were not there. Two days later, three more were found: a Russian couple and one of the Polish girls. They were also thrown out on the roads in different places, beaten, without documents and money. They told the same story: a pickup truck, armed men, kidnapping.
But the second Polish girl and four Germans were not found, and neither was Yulia. Police continued their search in the following days. The consulates of the relevant countries were involved . The case gained international resonance. This was not the first time that tourists were kidnapped in Egypt .
In 2012 and 2013, Bedouin tribes in the Sinai Peninsula repeatedly kidnapped tourist groups, demanding the release of their relatives from prison. But those cases ended quickly. The tourists were released within a day or two after negotiations. This situation looked different. There was no ransom demand. There was no contact from the kidnappers.
Some of the tourists were thrown out, the rest were taken to an unknown location. Andrey received documents for returning to his homeland through the Ukrainian consulate. He refused to leave without Yulia and demanded that the Egyptian police continue an active search. The consulate explained that the Egyptian authorities were doing everything possible, but the territory was vast.
The desert is poorly controlled. Bedouin clans live by their own laws and do not cooperate with official structures. Andrey spent another week in Egypt, trying to find out something himself, but to no avail. Ultimately, he was persuaded to return to Ukraine and wait for information from official channels.
Upon his return, he filed a complaint with all possible authorities, contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, human rights organizations, and journalists. The story made the news, but there were no concrete results. The Egyptian side reported that the investigation was ongoing, but there were few leads.
The remaining missing tourists were also never found. Their families in Germany and Poland did the same, demanding a search and turning to international organizations. But time passed, and no more information was added. Julia was taken in a different direction. After Andrei was dumped on the road, the pickup truck with her in the back drove for several more hours through the desert.
There were no roads as such , only dirt tracks and traces of previous vehicles. She tried to remember the direction, but in the dark it was pointless. Besides her, there were two armed men in the back of the truck who did not allow her to get up or try to jump out. When she tried to speak, they silently pushed her back onto the floor of the truck.
By dawn, the pickup truck arrived at a small settlement in the middle of the desert. It was a group of about twenty buildings made of stone and clay with flat roofs. There were pens for scythes and sheep around. There were no signs of modern infrastructure. No power lines, [music] no running water, no paved roads.
It was a typical Bedouin settlement, of which there are dozens in the Egyptian desert between Sinai and the Red Sea coast, living virtually outside state control. Yulia was pulled out of the pickup truck and taken into one of the buildings. There were several men and women in traditional dress there. A conversation began in Arabic, of which she did not understand a word.
One of the middle-aged men with a beard and wearing a long white shirt approached her, looked at her, and said something to the others. Then they took her to a small room without windows and locked the door from the outside. Inside there was only a mat on the floor and a jug of water. She spent the whole day there, [music] trying to figure out what was going on and what they were going to do to her .
In the evening they opened the door and brought food, flatbreads and some kind of porridge. While she was eating, the same middle-aged man who had examined her in the morning entered the room. He was with an elderly woman who spoke very poor English. Through her, the man conveyed that Yulia now belonged to him, that she had been bought from those who had brought her, and that she would live and work here.
Yulia tried to explain that she was a tourist, that she [music] had a husband, that they were looking for her, that this was a crime. The woman translated. The man answered briefly, “The translation was simple: ‘ There are no police here, no state, only clan laws, and now she is his property.’ That night, the violence began. He raped her several times.
She screamed and resisted, but he was physically much stronger, and no one responded to her cries. In the morning, she was taken out of the room and shown what she was supposed to do. The work consisted of carrying water from a well located several hundred meters from the settlement, cooking, caring for animals, and cleaning.
All the women in the settlement worked, including the wives of the man who had bought her. He had two wives, both local, both older than Yulia. They treated her with contempt and indifference. Yulia tried to escape for the first week. Twice at night, she left the settlement and tried to walk in the direction where she thought civilization should be.
Both times, she was caught within a few hours. The desert is open, tracks are visible, dogs can smell the direction. After her first escape, she was beaten, then beaten more severely after her second, and kept tied up in the same room for several days without food, given only water. After that, she stopped trying to escape physically, realizing that without knowledge of the terrain, without water or food, she would die in the desert faster than she could reach populated areas.
Her documents were burned on the very first day. Her passport, money, maps—everything was destroyed. Her phone was taken away on the road during the abduction. She had no contact with the outside world . She tried to talk to the women of the settlement, trying to find at least someone who understood English or Russian.
But most spoke nothing but Arabic, and those who knew a few words of English were afraid to communicate with her. Later, she realized that the system worked simply. The men of the clan controlled everything, the women obeyed. Any attempt to help a strange woman was seen as a betrayal of the clan. After a few months, it became clear that she was pregnant. She hadn’t had a period.
Nausea set in , her body was changing. No medical care was available to her. They didn’t provide anything. The pregnancy proceeded under the same conditions: work, violence, minimal food. The only thing that changed was that towards the end of her pregnancy, they stopped making her do hard work with water and animals, but she continued to cook and clean until her last days.
She gave birth in the same room where she lived, without doctors or a hospital. An elderly woman from the settlement, who served as a midwife for all the clan’s births, delivered the baby. The first child was born at the end of 2018, about nine months after the abduction. It was a boy. The birth was difficult, without pain relief, with tears and bleeding.
The midwife did something with her own methods, stopping the bleeding with herbs and cloth. Yulia thought she was going to die, but she survived. The child was taken away almost immediately. They gave it to one of the man’s wives, who nursed him along with her own child. Yulia was allowed to see her son, but rarely.
She was viewed not as a mother, but as an incubator and a worker. force. A few months after giving birth, it all happened again. More violence, another pregnancy. The second child was born in 2020, also a boy. The birth was slightly easier, but Yulia’s health worsened. She was losing weight despite the pregnancies. Her diet was meager: flatbreads, millet porridge, sometimes goat’s milk and meat, but in minimal quantities.
Her teeth began to decay from a lack of vitamins and hygiene. Her hair became dull and brittle. Her skin was burned and cracked from constant exposure to the sun. She was turning into an emaciated woman, who no longer looked much like the one who had come to Egypt on vacation. The third child was born in 2021, a girl.
The fourth in 2023, again a girl. After the fourth birth, Yulia was physically on the brink. Chronic exhaustion, anemia, kidney problems, scars from childbirth and years of violence. Psychologically, she was in a state… which can be described as a mixture of Stockholm syndrome and complete despair. She became attached to the children.
It was the only emotional connection that kept her from complete mental collapse. She was afraid of the man who bought her, but at the same time, she no longer saw an alternative to this life. The memory of her former life became increasingly blurred and unreal. At the same time, thousands of kilometers away, Andrei continued his search.
He spent the first year in constant attempts to reach out to official bodies. He traveled to Kyiv, met with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with employees of human rights organizations, and with journalists. Yulia’s story periodically surfaced in the news, but without new facts, interest quickly faded.
The Egyptian side responded to official inquiries in a standard manner. An investigation is ongoing, but there are no leads. It is assumed that the kidnapped tourists either died in the desert or were taken to another country. Andrei did not believe the official version. He began to independently study the topic of kidnappings in Egypt.
He learned about cases from 2009-2015 , when Bedouin clans in Sinai kidnapped African refugees en masse, held them in the desert, tortured them, demanded ransom, and sold those who didn’t pay into slavery or killed them. According to various estimates, more than 30,000 people passed through this system. Many human rights organizations documented these cases, but there were few real mechanisms for freeing them.
Andrey contacted one such organization, an Italian human rights group that specialized in human trafficking cases in North Africa. A woman named Maria worked there , who had been freeing people from slavery in Sinai for several years. She explained to Andrey that official channels were almost useless in such cases.
The Egyptian authorities had no control over the Bedouin clans in the desert, and the clans themselves lived by their own laws. The only way to find a person was to work through informants within these clans, people willing to provide information for money. Maria agreed to help, but warned that the process could take years and that there were no guarantees. Andrey agreed to any conditions.
He sold his apartment, car, took out loans to have money to pay informants, travel, and bribes. Maria tapped into her network of contacts in Egypt. These were people who worked with refugees, Bedouins, traders, and local activists. Information was collected bit by bit. First, it was necessary to understand in which region the abductees could have ended up.
Sinai was too large a territory. There were dozens of clans there. The first lead appeared eight months after the start of cooperation with Maria. One of the informants reported that he had heard from traffickers about a group of European tourists who were sold to several clans in the spring of 2018. The information was inaccurate.
There were no names or specific locations. But this at least confirmed that some of the abductees could have survived and been [music] in slavery. Andrey insisted on continuing the search. Every few months, new information came in , but it was always fragmentary and unverifiable. Andrey traveled to Egypt eight times over five years.
Each time, he tried to gather information on his own, talking to people in In the desert-adjacent areas, he paid for any rumors and hints. It was dangerous. Bedouin clans disliked outside interference, and he was warned several times that if he continued asking questions, problems could arise. But he didn’t stop.
For him, Yulia was alive until there was proof otherwise. By the end of 2022, the situation began to change. One of the informants, who worked as a driver and transported goods between settlements in the desert, passed on information through Maria that a European woman with several children lived in one of the clans south of Sinai .
The description was general: “Fair skin, blond hair, does not speak Arabic, works like the other women in the clan.” The informant couldn’t give the exact location of the settlement, but he did indicate the approximate area and the name of the clan leader. Andrei and Maria began to verify this information. They needed to understand whether it was really Yulia.
They hired another person, a local, who could infiltrate the area under the guise of a trader or a relative of someone from clan. It took several more months. In early 2023, this man was able to enter the settlement and see a woman matching the description from a distance. He couldn’t get close or speak to her, but he took several photos on his phone from a distance.
The quality was poor, but Andrei, having received these photos, recognized Yulia by her silhouette, because she was moving, and by the scar on her left arm, which was visible even in the blurry photo. This was a turning point. Now they had an exact location and confirmation that she was alive.
But the problem was how to get her out of there. They couldn’t just show up and take her. The clan was armed, the territory was controlled. Any attempt at a violent release could end in the death of Yulia [music] and the children. Maria proposed the only real option: organize an operation through Egyptian security forces, but under a pretext unrelated to the kidnapping of tourists.
Officially, the authorities did not want to admit that tourists had been enslaved by Bedouins for years, because it would damage the country’s reputation. But if they presented it as If an operation against arms or drug smuggling were to be carried out, then a raid could be carried out with formal justification. Maria, through her contacts, contacted an officer in the Egyptian security forces who was handling operations in desert areas.
He was offered a deal. [music] Information on the location of a large weapons depot would be provided in exchange for the evacuation of a European woman and her children, who were illegally residing there, during a raid [music]. The officer agreed, but demanded a significant sum of money as a guarantee of the operation’s confidentiality.
Andrey gave up the last of his money . The operation was scheduled for February 2023. It was a night raid involving several cars and armed officers. Andrey couldn’t participate directly, but he was in the nearest town, awaiting the result. The raid was quick. The settlement was surrounded, the clan men were detained, a search was conducted, and a formal search for weapons was conducted.
Yulia and her four children were taken separately, put in one of the cars, and driven out of the settlement. The head of the clan, the same man, The man who had bought her and kept her all these years was arrested on formal charges of illegal possession of weapons.
Nothing was mentioned in the official documents about slavery, human trafficking, or violence . Yulia and the children were taken to Cairo, to a safe place, where she was met by representatives of the Ukrainian consulate. and Andrey. It was their first meeting in five years. The meeting took place in one of the rooms of the Ukrainian consulate building in Cairo.
Andrey was waiting in a small room when Yulia and the children were brought in. The door opened, and he saw her for the first time in five years. She looked like a different person. Thin to the point of emaciation, her skin dark and weathered, her hair tangled and short, her face with deep wrinkles that should not be there on a woman of 34.
She was dressed in traditional Bedouin clothing, which she was given at the consulate instead of the one she had arrived in. Next to her stood four children. The boys were about 4 and 3 years old, the girls were about 2 years old, and A baby in his arms. Andrey stepped toward her, wanting to hug her, but she recoiled.
Not aggressively, but instinctively. He stopped. She looked at him, but there was no recognition or joy in her eyes. It was something between fear and indifference. A consular officer who was present at the meeting quietly explained to Andrey that she needed time, that she was in shock, that there was no need to rush.
Andrey sat down on a chair, trying to contain his emotions. Yulia sat opposite, the children clung to her. The eldest boy looked at Andrey with suspicion. For the first few days, Yulia barely spoke. She was admitted to a medical facility in Cairo, where they conducted initial examinations. The diagnoses were serious.
Chronic exhaustion, severe anemia, kidney problems, genitourinary infections , multiple scars from childbirth and injuries, a loss of 18 kg from a normal weight, 11 decayed teeth. Signs of osteoporosis. The psychological state was assessed as post-traumatic. a severe stress disorder with elements of Stockholm syndrome.
She couldn’t sleep without her children by her side, panicked at the sight of unfamiliar men, and refused some medical procedures. Andrey remained in Cairo, trying to establish contact. Yulia only started talking to him on the third day, and then only in short sentences. She asked what would happen to the children, afraid they would be taken away.
Andrey tried to explain that they were safe, that they were being taken to Ukraine, that everything would be fine. She didn’t believe it. She repeated that the children had to be with her, that otherwise they would be killed. There was no logic in her words , but the fear was real. The psychologist who consulted her explained to Andrey that years of violence, isolation, and constant stress had destroyed normal mechanisms for perceiving reality.
For her, the only safety was the children, and any attempt to separate them was perceived as a threat to life. A separate problem posed by the children’s documents. Formally, they were born in Egypt, but without medical supervision, without [music] registration, without a record with government agencies. They had no birth certificates.
They had no legal father at birth and were stateless. Egyptian authorities were reluctant to process the documents, acknowledging that the children were born as a result of a crime on their territory. The Ukrainian consulate began the registration process through emergency channels, but this required time and confirmation.
DNA tests, medical reports, a mother’s testimony, and approval from the Egyptian authorities were required. After two weeks in Cairo, they were able to arrange a return to Ukraine. Yulia was issued a temporary entry document. The children were issued similar documents as accompanying stateless persons.
This was a legal compromise, allowing them to leave Egypt with the promise to complete their paperwork once in Ukraine. The departure was arranged via a special flight with medical escort. Yulia refused to fly without the children in the same row, so they were assigned a separate area on the plane. Andrey sat next to her, but she did not allow him to touch her or the children.
Upon arrival in Ukraine, they were met by representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, medical personnel, and employees of the child welfare service. Yulia and the children were immediately They took her to the hospital for a full examination and treatment. Andrey went with them.
At the hospital, a more detailed diagnosis began. Yulia’s physical condition was critical. She needed treatment for anemia, kidney function restoration, dental intervention, and gynecological surgery to correct the consequences of an unassisted birth . Doctors estimated a recovery period of at least a year with intensive care.
Her psychological state was even more complex. Yulia showed all the signs of severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks, avoidance of any situations reminiscent of the past. But at the same time, Stockholm syndrome was manifesting itself. She defended the memory of the man who enslaved her .
She said that he fed her, gave her a roof over her head, did not kill her, that without him, the children would have died. When psychologists tried to explain that this man was her rapist and criminal, she withdrew and refused to continue the conversation. For her, he had become a figure on whom her survival depended, and this distorted her perception.
The children also demanded attention. The eldest boy was 4 years old. He spoke only Arabic, [music] was afraid of everyone except his mother, and showed aggression when doctors tried to examine him. The second boy was apathetic, barely reacting to others. The girls were too young to assess their psychological state, but physically all the children were emaciated and lagged behind age-appropriate development.
They were placed in the children’s ward of the hospital, but Yulia categorically refused to be separated from them. Eventually, a ward was organized where she could be with the children constantly. Andrey tried to restore their relationship, but it proved impossible. Yulia did not perceive him as a husband. She did not remember the details of their life together, or did not want to remember.
When he showed her photographs, she looked at them as if they were alien images. Psychologists explained that this was a defense mechanism. Her past life was too painful a contrast to what she had experienced, and her brain blocked these memories to reduce the suffering. Andrey continued to come every day, bringing food, toys for the children, trying He tried to talk to her, but she treated him like a stranger who was somehow always nearby.
Meanwhile, legal proceedings began. The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs opened a criminal case for human trafficking and illegal imprisonment. But the problem was that the crime was committed in Egypt. The perpetrators were also located there, and cooperation between the two countries’ law enforcement agencies was minimal.
The Egyptian side officially confirmed that in February 2023, a raid was conducted against arms smuggling, during which several people were detained and a foreign citizen was released. But there was no mention of human trafficking charges . Those arrested were convicted of illegal possession of weapons for terms ranging from 2 to 5 years.
These were laughable sentences for what actually happened. Ukrainian investigators tried to gather evidence for an international investigation. They took Yulia’s testimony, but she confused dates, couldn’t remember names, and couldn’t accurately describe the place where she was held. Her condition made her testimony legally weak.
Medical reports confirmed the fact of a long-term Violence and exhaustion were reported, but no direct connection to specific individuals was established. The children could not be witnesses due to their age. DNA tests showed that all four children had the same biological father. But without a DNA sample from this person, this was simply information without legal consequences.
Several journalists wrote stories, but the topic was too difficult and complex for mass attention. Moreover, Yulia refused to give interviews, did not want to be filmed, did not want her face shown. Andrey gave a few comments in which he spoke about the five years of searching, about what they had gone through, about how the system does not work when it comes to crimes in other countries.
But his words did not lead to any systemic changes. After three months of treatment, Yulia was discharged from the hospital. Her physical condition improved. Her weight began to return, the infections were treated, and dental prosthetics began. But her psychological state remained grave. She was provided with social housing, a small apartment where she could live with her children.
Andrey offered his help, offered to live together, to restore the family. Yulia refused. She She didn’t want a man around. Any male presence made her anxious. Andrey continued to support her financially and visited the children, but he understood that their marriage had effectively ended the moment she was taken to the desert five years ago.
They began preparing the older boy and the girls for kindergarten, but the process was slow. They didn’t speak Ukrainian, socialized poorly, and were afraid of strangers. Yulia was learning to live in society all over again. Going to the store was a challenge. There were people, noise, men. She would return home and not leave for days .
The psychologist who worked with her said that a full recovery might never come. That the best she could hope for was adaptation to basic life functions and managing the symptoms of PTSD. The question of punishing the perpetrators remained open. The head of the clan, who bought Yulia and kept her in slavery for five years, served two years in an Egyptian prison on formal charges [music] and was released.
The people who organized the roadside kidnapping were never found. Egyptian authorities closed the case as solved. Ukrainian investigators continued to formally conduct the case, but with no real prospect of bringing it to trial. International human rights organizations included Yulia’s case in their reports as further evidence that human trafficking in the Egyptian desert continues, despite official statements about combating it.
As for the other kidnapped tourists from the same group, four Germans and one Polish girl, their fate remains unknown. Although Julia was found, no trace of the others was found. Perhaps they were sold to other clans. They may have died. They may be in the same situation that Julia was in for 5 years.
But in other settlements, where informants did not reach. Their families continue to wait and search, [music] but the chances become slimmer with each passing year . Julia’s story highlights several systemic problems. The first is the vulnerability of tourists in countries where desert areas are effectively not controlled by the state and where Bedouin clans live by their own laws.
The second is the dysfunctional mechanisms of international cooperation in investigating crimes, when the victim is from one country, the criminals are in another, and no one has the desire to solve the case . Third, the invisibility of the problem of human trafficking in regions where it has been going on for years but is not included in statistics or the media.
The fourth is the lack of real assistance to victims after release, when a person is formally saved, but remains psychologically and socially destroyed. Yulia survived physically, but the woman who flew to Egypt five years ago for a regular beach vacation ceased to exist. In her place is a traumatized, sick, psychologically broken woman with four children [music] born into slavery, trying to survive in a world to which she no longer belongs.
Andrey lost his wife, spent all his money and 5 years of his life searching, [music] but got back a man who doesn’t recognize him and doesn’t want to know him. The criminals remained unpunished. The system remained unchanged. The story ended not with the victory of justice, but with the statement of fact.
In the desert between Sinai and the Red Sea, a few hours’ drive from the tourist resorts, people still live in slavery, and the world prefers not to know about it .
