Seventeen Somali nationals have been arrested in at Nasir suburb in Egyptian capital Cairo on Tuesday.
In an operation aimed to hunt illegal migrants, Egyptian police has nabbed the Somali nationals who include students, undocumented refugees and migrants on their way to Europe.
According to Somali community, the seventeen who comprise of men and women arrested from Somali dominated estate Nasir City. They were detained at nearby police station.
Somali embassy in Cairo has not yet commented on the operation to hunt Somali nationals in Egypt.
Mohamed Abbas, a Somali national in the area said most of detainees are refugees and students.
“There are efforts to release these people. Initially, the police raided te hotel where these were, they asked for documents and identification cards, the police arrested those failed to produce the documents,” said Abbas.
Egypt hosts large number of Somalis who reached that country after and before Somalia plunged into civil war in 1990s.
The move comes amid cases of human smuggling have been on the rise in the region with hundreds of young men and women from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia are finding their way into European countries through Egypt and Mediterranean Sea in search of employment.
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