Egypt: Forcibly disappeared boy turns 15 away from home

A young boy who was forcibly disappeared in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has turned 15 away from his family, two years after he was forcibly disappeared.

Abdullah Bomadeen was 12 when he was kidnapped from his home in the North Sinai capital of Arish on 17 December 2017, forcibly disappeared, and then taken to Katiba 101 Police Station.

In July 2018 he appeared in front of the prosecution for the first time.

According to the rights group We Record, Abdullah was interrogated as though he were an adult, without a lawyer being present, and accused of joining a terror group under case 570, which was classified as a state security case.

In Egypt, political prisoners are regularly charged with being part of a terror network.

Egypt has been fighting a protracted war on terror in the Sinai Peninsula under which civilians have been forcibly disappeared, killed and forced out of their homes.

Abdullah was detained in solitary confinement in Al-Azbakeya Police Station for almost 100 days and, according to Amnesty International, he was tortured.

READ: ‘Tunisia detains 17 Egyptian fishermen’

On 26 December 2018 Abdullah was released after a Children’s Court in Abbasiya ruled that he should be. But as he was being transferred to Al-Arish Police Station on 10 January 2019 he was forcibly disappeared and has not been seen since.

Egypt regularly detains children who are not spared violations whilst incarcerated. During the September protests authorities detained 77 children between 10 and 15, mostly from Upper Egypt.

Under Egyptian law, children are not supposed to be detained with adults yet they are often held together in overcrowded cells and without enough food.

Ibrahim was just 14 when he was arrested from his home, also in Arish, two years ago. To this day, his mother and siblings do not know where he is being held.

Child prisoners suffer from PTSD, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and nightmares when they are eventually released.

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