Mihret Gebru recently watched with concern two videos on her phone that went viral. They showed people from the Horn of Africa in Sudan being beaten and attacked by gunmen. To her horror, she saw her sister among the captives.
“I could immediately identify Luwam, who is wearing the orange scarf that I know very well – and her shoes, which are partially visible,” she told the BBC.
The sisters are from Eritrea and, like many other young people, Luwam Gebru has fled the indefinite military service in the country, which they believe denies them a future.
She ended up in neighboring Ethiopia in 2019, where she had refugee status. But being a refugee can be like living in limbo – and many choose to make dangerous journeys in search of new lives and opportunities.
Ms Mihret said her 24-year-old brother had decided to take the risk of traveling to Libya via Sudan’s war zone last year, several months after the conflict broke out.
Sudan descended into chaos in April 2023 when former allies – the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – began fighting each other for control of the country.
Many foreigners were hastily evacuated, but some refugees already in the country and recently arrived migrants like Ms. Luwam were treated with suspicion and taken as prisoners of war.
“We didn’t hear her voice for almost a month,” says Mrs. Mihret.
“She had called us once from Sudan and said, ‘Don’t worry, I have arrived safely in Sudan and we can reach Libya this week.’”
Her younger sister sounded confident that the human traffickers she had entrusted with her life would not abandon her.
But she was not heard from for another five months – until the videos appeared on social media in April.
BBC Verify’s analysis of the footage suggests they were uploaded on April 7 and 8.
A Sudanese army general calls the approximately fifty prisoners on board a truck ‘mercenaries from Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia’.
They appear to have been captured while fleeing heavy fighting around the Al-Jaily oil refinery, north of the capital Khartoum, which was held by the RSF and is used as a base in the area.
In one of the videos, an army officer says the prisoners are being transferred to the army’s Wadi Seidna military base, also north of the capital.
There are unsubstantiated reports that the RSF is using foreign fighters, which could explain the hostility of army officers towards the group.
Photos of the group, including some with Ms. Luwam in her orange scarf, show them huddled in a room in a warehouse.
Ms Mihret, who was also able to identify one of her neighbours from Eritrea among the group, said they have not been able to get any further information.
“We don’t know much, we are told they are in the custody of the Sudanese authorities.”
Other Eritreans have told the BBC they have relatives registered as refugees in Sudan who are missing and reportedly being held by the Sudanese military.
Two of them left Eritrea together last year and arrived at a UN-run refugee camp in Kassala state in eastern Sudan in October.
Their families say Yonatan Tesfaslassie, 17 years old, and Edmon Kidane, 20 years old, were then approached by smugglers.
Such traffickers, some of whom are reportedly from the RSF, often target the young and new arrivals, promising them a safe route out of Sudan in return for payment.
Once on the road, they exert pressure to ask relatives abroad to pay more money and leave them behind on the road.
In the case of Yonatan and Edmon, they were aiming for South Sudan, while it appeared they had been abandoned by the smugglers and separated.
It appears they have both reached Wad Madani, in Gezira state, a town about 190 km south of Khartoum that has been a safe haven for many since the start of the war.
But in December the movement fell to RSF forces and more than 300,000 people fled in the chaos.
That was the last time Mr Yonatan’s family heard from him – when he said he was on his way to South Sudan with other migrants.
His sister Winta Tesfaslassie later heard from those who managed to cross the border safely that he may have been one of many migrants subsequently arrested in the army-occupied town of Rabek, a little further south.
Some of them were taken to the nearby town of Sinjah, others possibly to the town of Sennar, where they were held by the army.
“The whole family is so worried and we have no idea what to do, we feel helpless. We want to know if he is safe, he is too young to go through such an ordeal and he has nothing to do with the war in Sudan,” Ms Winta, who lives in Britain, told the BBC.
Mr Edmon’s family also last heard from him while he was in Wad Madani – although it appears he was held in the town for several weeks before it fell into RSF hands.
“A smuggler told us he was being held by the Sudanese army,” his sister Adiam Kidane, who lives in Angola, told the BBC.
The smuggler was their only source of information, “but later he stopped answering our calls,” she said.
“We couldn’t tell our mother for a long time, but finally we had to. She fainted when she heard that we had no news about him. We are all in distress. We are constantly thinking about what could have happened to him.”
According to some reports, more than 200 migrants of various nationalities were detained at a military facility in Wad Madani before the RSF advance. The BBC cannot independently confirm this information.
It has since been reported that the prisoners were taken with the army as it withdrew from Wad Madani.
The UN refugee agency says it has received similar reports about the military’s detention of asylum seekers and refugees. According to the UN, there are more than 147,000 Eritreans and about 70,000 Ethiopians in the country.
It told the BBC it was planning a verification mission to Sennar state, which includes the towns of Sinjah and Rabek, and urged relatives of refugees who believe they are in custody to report the information via the UNHCR Sudan help page.
Similarly, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said those whose family members are missing in Sudan should open a case through the hotline or offices in the country.
“Helping families who have lost contact with their loved ones locate them is one of our top priorities. But our ability to do this depends on the access we have and the unstable security situation,” the ICRC told the BBC.
The Sudanese embassy in London did not respond to a request from the BBC for comment on the detentions of foreigners.
Despite international efforts to stop the fighting, which has killed an estimated 15,000 people, the warring parties have failed to agree to a ceasefire.
The three sisters who spoke to the BBC about their missing siblings say it is incredibly frustrating to get information, whether it comes from the ICRC, the UN or the military.
“Please help us, the UN, whoever… we are desperate,” Ms Winta said.
“We appeal to the Sudanese authorities to please allow them to call us to hear their voices.
“We beg the military to release them, these are innocent young people who left their country in the hope of reaching a safe destination in South Sudan.”
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