Two Polish tourists were kidnapped by Bedouins in the Egyptian desert…
When a jeep was stopped by two pickup trucks carrying armed men on a deserted road between Hurghada and Safaga, the GIT received $3,000 in cash and turned the car around, leaving the two Polish tourists in the hands of their kidnappers. Within 48 hours, both girls were sold to different Bedouin families for $4,000 each and disappeared into the desert of eastern Egypt.
Kasia and Magda arrived at Hurghada International Airport on April 21, 2021. They bought tickets through a Polish travel agency, which offered a week-long package including hotel accommodation, transfers, and diving in the Red Sea. Both girls were experienced divers and had been traveling together regularly since 2017.
Kasi worked as a graphic designer in Warsaw. Magda was 24 years old. She was in her final year of university, majoring in international relations. They arrived on a direct flight from Warsaw. The travel time was about 4 hours. In April 2021, Egypt was just beginning to recover its tourism industry from the pandemic.
Restrictions were lifted, but tourist flow remained significantly below pre-pandemic levels. Hurghada is the largest resort city on the Red Sea coast and depends almost entirely on tourism. The local economy has suffered over the past year. Many hotels operated at minimal capacity. Guides and tour companies competed for every client.
Prices for services fell, attracting budget tourists from Eastern Europe. The girls stayed at a three-star hotel in the tourist area of Hurghada. They spent the first 5 days on the beach and made three dives with instructor Krif near the shore. The weather was good. The air temperature remained around 32°. The water warmed up to 24.
Visibility underwater was excellent. They saw turtles, rays, and many tropical fish. At the hotel we met other tourists, mainly from Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine. The atmosphere was relaxed and there were no alarm signals. On April 26, on the sixth day of their stay, a local guide named Ahmed approached them.
He offered a tour to a Bedouin village in the desert. Such tours are popular in Hurghada. Almost all travel agencies offer them. The standard program includes a jeep ride deep into the desert. Visit a traditional Bedouin settlement, drink tea, ride a camel, watch the sunset and enjoy dinner with national dishes.
Tourists return to the hotel late in the evening. Akhmet offered a price of $50 per person, which was about 30% cheaper than the standard offers from official hotel tour companies . Kasia and Magda saw no reason to refuse. They read reviews of such excursions on the Internet. [music] Many tourists have recommended them as a way to see the real desert and get to know the local culture.
Git showed them photos from previous tours of happy tourists in a Bedouin village. He had a business card with the name of a travel company and a telephone number. It all looked legal. The girls agreed and paid in advance. Akhmet said he would pick them up the next day, April 27th at 3:00 pm. On the twenty-seventh, Akhmet arrived on time in a white Toyota jeep.
Besides him, there was another man in the car, whom he introduced as his colleague and driver. The girls sat in the back seat. There were no other tourists in the car, although such tours are usually organized in groups of six to eight people. When Kasia asked about this, Akhmed explained that due to the low season, there were few people willing to go, and that they were the only ones going today.
This did not alarm the girls, although later investigators would note this moment as the first alarm signal. The jeep left Hurghada and headed south along the coastal road, then turned west towards the desert. The road was paved for the first 30 km, then turned into a dirt road. The landscape quickly changed from coastal greenery to bare rocky hills and sandy plains.
The car drove for about an hour. The girls took pictures of the desert through the windows and chatted with their parents on instant messengers while there was a cell phone signal . About 45 minutes after leaving the city, the connection was completely lost. Around 5:00 pm the jeep arrived at a small settlement of 10-15 clay houses and a few tents.
It looked like a typical Bedouin village, like the ones they show to tourists. Several men in traditional clothing sat around a fire. There were camels standing nearby. Ahmed invited the girls to go out and said that the program was about to begin. They got out of the car and looked around.
The place looked authentic, although it was noticeably poor. There were no other tourists there, which seemed strange. But Akhmet explained that the other group had already left, and the next one would arrive later. They were offered [music] tea and invited to sit on carpets by the fire. One of the Bedouins spoke to them in broken English and told them about life in the desert.
Everything looked like a typical tourist program. The girls relaxed, took photos, and drank tea. The sun began to set towards the horizon. Ahmed said that soon it would be sunset and dinner, after which they would go back. The time was around 6:00 pm. The following events happened quickly. At about 0:00, two pickup trucks drove up to the village . Four men came out of them.
Two of them had Kalashnikov assault rifles. It no longer looked like a tourist program. Kasia and Magda stood up, instinctively realizing that something was wrong. Ahmed spoke to the armed men in Arabic. The conversation was short. One of the armed men took out a wad of dollars and gave it to Akhmed.
He counted the bills, nodded, got into his jeep and drove away with the second driver without looking back. All this took less than 5 minutes. The girls realized that they had been sold. They tried to escape, but were quickly captured. Magda screamed, tried to break free, and was hit in the face.
PART2
Kasya was being held by the hands of two men. They were tied with ropes, their mouths were gagged with rags, and they were pushed into the back of one of the pickup trucks. All this took place in the light of the setting sun, in full view of the rest of the Bedouins from the village, who did not interfere. The whole operation seemed well-practiced and routine.
Investigators would later determine that similar kidnappings of tourists in this region occurred regularly from 2009 to 2015. Then the cases became less frequent, but did not stop completely. The pickups went in different directions. Kasya was taken to the north, Magda to the northwest. The road was bumpy, and the girls were thrown around the metal body.
Kasa managed to loosen the ropes on her hands a little, but she did not try to run, realizing that there was no chance of survival in the desert in the darkness. The car traveled for about 2 hours. When it was completely dark, the pickup truck stopped at a small settlement of several houses and cattle pens.
Kasya was pulled out of the back of the truck, his legs were untied and he was taken to one of the houses. The house was simple. Two rooms with clay walls, earthen floor, minimum [music] furniture. A kerosene lamp was burning in the corner . Kasya was seated on the floor in the far room and the door was locked. She heard voices outside, male and female, speaking in Arabic.
After some time, the door opened and a woman of about forty years old, dressed in black, entered. She untied Kasya’s hands and gave him water and bread. In broken English she said that Kasia must now work and obey, otherwise it will get worse. She explained that there was no point in running.
There is a desert all around, the nearest city is 100 km away, you can’t reach it without water. That first night Kasya did not sleep. She tried to understand what was happening, how to contact the outside world, how to get out. Her phone was taken from her in the pickup truck. The door was locked from the outside. There was no window. She heard people talking behind the wall .
Then the sounds died down and everyone went to bed. Kasya cried, but tried to do it quietly. She thought about Magda, not knowing if her friend was alive, where she was, what was wrong with her. She thought about her parents in Warsaw, who knew nothing and were waiting for news from their trip. She sent her last message to her mother around 4 pm when they were driving to the desert, writing that they were going on an excursion and would write in the evening.
The next morning the situation became clearer. The woman who came at night turned out to be the wife of the head of this Bedouin family. The family consisted of the headman himself, named Hamdi, his wife Amina, their three children, and Hamdi’s mother, an old woman of about seventy. They lived here permanently, were engaged in cattle breeding, kept scythes and several camels.
The nearest settlement was 20 km away. There was no electricity in the house. Water was taken from a well and cooked over an open fire. They lived poorly, almost primitively by 21st century standards . Kase was given an explanation of her role. She must help with the housework: carry water from the well, cook, clean, and look after the cattle. wash clothes.
The work lasted from dawn until dark. They fed her meagerly, mostly flatbread and water, sometimes goat or dates. She was allowed to sleep in the same room where she spent the first night. The door was locked at night. During the day she was under the supervision of Amina or her mother-in-law.
Hamdi and his eldest son, a teenager of about six years old, were armed and carried old rifles. It was clear that any attempt to escape would be stopped by force. The first few days Kasya was in shock. She couldn’t believe that this was actually happening in 2021 in a country that attracts millions of tourists.
She tried to talk to Amina, to explain that her family would pay the ransom, that she needed to be released. Amina replied that they had already paid money for her, and now she was their property. Kasya was bought for 4,000 dollars. which for this family was a huge sum, equal to several years of income from cattle breeding.
Amina didn’t see anything wrong with the situation . For her, it was a normal deal. Meanwhile, in Hurghada, the girls’ parents raised the alarm. When Kasia and Magda had not returned to the hotel by the morning of April 28, the management initially assumed they might have been delayed on an excursion or decided to stay overnight.
But when they still could n’t be reached by lunchtime , hotel staff called the police. The girls’ parents in Poland also received no responses to their messages and calls this morning. The mothers of both girls contacted each other and then the hotel. By the evening of April 28, it became clear that the girls were missing.
Egyptian police in Hurghada registered a missing person report. Initially, the case was treated as a typical disappearance of tourists. There are dozens of such cases a year throughout Egypt. Most resolve quickly. People are in hospitals after accidents, in other cities they sometimes simply lose contact and documents. Serious investigations usually begin within a few days if no information emerges.
The hotel staff told the police about the guide Ahmed and the desert excursion. They gave me his business card and phone number. The police tried to contact him, but the number did not answer. We checked the travel company listed on the business card. It turned out that such a company does not exist. The business card was fake.
This was the first serious signal that the disappearance might be criminal. The case was transferred to the anti- kidnapping department. Investigators began searching for Akhmed. The description of the guide was given by other tourists who saw him at the hotel. Dozens of people fit the description. No official guides with this name were found in the databases.
We checked the hotel’s security cameras and found a recording of the girls getting into a white Toyota SUV. The car’s license plates were not clearly visible in the recording, but specialists improved the image. The numbers led us to the owner, a local resident, who said he sold the car two months ago to someone for cash without paperwork. The trail ended.
The Polish consulate in Cairo immediately joined the case. The consul contacted the Egyptian Ministry of Interior and asked them to intensify the search. The story began to leak into the Polish media. The girls’ parents gave interviews, asked for help, and appealed to the government. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent an official request to the Egyptian authorities.
The matter took on a diplomatic dimension. Egyptian authorities have launched a search operation in the desert between Hurghada and Safaga. This is a vast territory, hundreds of square kilometers of desert land, where dozens of Bedouin settlements are scattered . The police began to visit these settlements, question local residents, and look for witnesses.
But the Bedouins are extremely withdrawn, do not trust the authorities, and do not give information to outsiders. Most of those surveyed claimed that they knew nothing about the missing tourists and had not seen any white women. The problem was that kidnapping tourists for sale as slaves or ransom had been a well-known practice in the region since the late 2000s.
Between 2009 and 2015, Bedouin clans in the Sinai Peninsula and the eastern desert [music] kidnapped, according to human rights organizations, more than 30,000 migrants and refugees from Eritrea, [music] Somalia, Ethiopia. They were kept in the desert, tortured, ransom was demanded from their relatives, and those who could not pay were sold into slavery or killed.
There have been cases with Western tourists as well, although much less frequently. In 2012 and 2013, Bedouins kidnapped several American and European tourists, demanding ransom or the release of prisoners. Almost all of these cases were resolved through payment of money or negotiations. But after 2015, international pressure and Egyptian military action in Sinai reduced the number of such incidents.
However, the practice did not stop completely. She went deeper underground. Egyptian authorities were aware of this problem, but preferred to keep it under wraps so as not to frighten tourists. Tourism brings Egypt about $12 billion a year. This is a vital sector of the economy. Any information about kidnappings could damage the country’s reputation and lead to the cancellation of tours.
Therefore, cases of kidnappings were officially hushed up or presented as isolated incidents not connected to a systemic problem. In the case of Kasya and Makda, Egyptian police investigated, but without much enthusiasm. Investigators understood that if the girls had indeed been kidnapped by Bedouins, [music] then finding them would be extremely difficult.
Bedouin clans live by their own laws, do not recognize state authority, and have extensive family ties. The police cannot simply enter a Bedouin settlement and conduct a search without good reason and permission from the elders. Any attempt to use force could lead to a conflict that the Egyptian government does not want to provoke.
By the end of May 2021, the search had reached a dead end. The police found no trace of the girls. Guide Akhmed was also not found. The official version of the Egyptian authorities was this: the girls may have been victims of an accident in the desert, got lost, and died of dehydration. Their bodies may have been buried in sand or eaten by wild animals.
The kidnapping theory was considered, but without concrete evidence the investigation made no progress. The case formally remained open. But no further active action was taken. The girls’ parents did not give up. They hired private detectives and contacted international human rights organizations that work with victims of human trafficking.
One such organization, which had been helping African refugees freed from Bedouin captivity, agreed to help. They had contacts among the Bedouins, informants who would pass on information for money. Information about the missing Polish tourists began to spread through these channels. They offered a reward for any information.
Meanwhile, Kasya had already spent a month in captivity. She got used to routine. Getting up at dawn, working all day, eating meager food, sleeping on the floor in a locked room. Physically, she became weak, lost several kilograms, and her skin became burnt and cracked from the sun and hard work. But the main test was the psychological stress.
She didn’t know how long it would last, whether she would ever be freed, Magda lived. She did not lose hope, but with each day Hope faded a little more. In early June, an event occurred that changed her situation. A man on a motorcycle, a relative of Hamdi from a neighboring village, arrived at the house.
He talked to Hamdi for a long time. They sat by the fire and drank tea. Kasya was working nearby, carrying water. She didn’t understand Arabic, but she noticed that the conversation was serious. After the guest left, Hamdi was thoughtful and silent. In the evening he talked to his wife.
Kasya heard snippets of the conversation, but did not understand the meaning. The next day, Hamdi went somewhere in his pickup truck and returned only in the evening. Since then, the atmosphere in the house has changed. Everyone became nervous and wary. Kasya later realized that her relative’s conversation concerned the police.
Egyptian officers appeared in several neighboring settlements , questioned Bedouins, and searched for the missing tourists. Information about this quickly spread through family ties between clans. Hamdi and his family became worried. Keeping a kidnapped European woman became risky. If the police found her here, it would mean serious problems, possibly prison for the whole family.
But it was also impossible to simply let Kasya go . They paid money for her , and she knew the way to their house and could lead the authorities. In mid-June, Hamdi decided to move Kasya to another location. He made arrangements with a distant relative who lived even deeper in the desert, 150 km from any cities or roads. The police definitely won’t show up there.
The place was so remote that even other Bedouins rarely went there. Early in the morning of June 19, Kasya was woken up, her hands were tied, and she was placed in the back of a pickup truck under a tarpaulin. The trip took about 5 hours along deserted trails. When she was pulled out of the truck, she saw an even more wretched settlement.
Three houses made of clay and stones, a shed for scythes, a well, and nothing more. Around, for hundreds of kilometers, a rocky desert stretched. The new family to whom she was handed over consisted of an old man of about sixty named Saleh, his two wives and five children of different ages. Living conditions here were even worse than in Hamdi.
There was not enough water, it was saved and used several times. There was little food, mostly dried dates and corn cakes. Meat was rarely eaten when a goat was slaughtered. Kase was given a corner in one of the rooms and locked in at night. During the day she worked under the supervision of one of Sole’s wives, a woman of about forty with a tough character.
There was even more work. Carrying water from a well located 200 m from the house, washing all the family’s clothes by hand, cooking, cleaning the scythe pen, and cleaning the skins of slaughtered animals. Kasya understood that the chances of salvation were now even less. This place was so isolated that even if someone looked for her, they would never find her here.
But she continued to cling to life, did her work, did not provoke conflicts, waited for an opportunity. She began learning Arabic by listening to her family’s conversations and memorizing words. This gave her a small advantage, allowing her to understand what was going on around her, what people were talking about. Saleh’s younger wife sometimes talked to her, taught her Arabic words, and explained how to do certain jobs correctly.
This woman had more compassion than the rest of the family. Another 2 months passed. August in the desert was unbearably hot. During the day, the temperature rose above 45°. Work had to be done mainly early in the morning and in the evening. During the day, everyone hid in the shadows of the houses. Kasya has lost a lot of weight.
Her European skin was deeply tanned and covered with numerous small scars from wounds and burns. Her clothes turned into rags. She was given an old Bedouin cape and scarf. In appearance she began to look like a local woman. But the main change was the psychological state. Kasya began to accept the situation as a new reality in which she would have to live for an indefinite period.
It was a defensive reaction of the psyche, a way of surviving in a hopeless situation. Meanwhile, the situation with Magda developed differently. She was taken to another settlement, approximately 120 km from the place where Kasya was held. The family that bought Magda was more prosperous. The head of the family was involved in smuggling, transporting goods across the desert between Sudan and Egypt, and had connections with criminal groups.
He had two pickups: a generator, a satellite phone. [music] Magda was not kept in isolation as harshly as Kasia. She was allowed to move around the house freely and was not locked in at night, but this did not mean that she could escape. The settlement was guarded, the surrounding area was deserted, and the head of the family made it clear that any attempt to escape would end badly.
He showed her the pistol he always carried with him. Magda was lucky in one respect. The head of the family did not use physical violence against her. He saw it as an investment, a commodity that could be sold or exchanged later. He planned to either demand a ransom from her family or sell her to someone in another country. While he kept her, he forced her to do housework, but her treatment was relatively tolerable.
They fed her normally, gave her clean clothes, and allowed her to wash. Magda quickly understood her role and played by the rules, did not resist, did what was required, and waited. In July 2021, the head of the family attempted to contact Magda’s parents to demand ransom. He used an intermediary, a man who had contacts in Hurghada. The intermediary called the Polish consulate in Cairo and conveyed the message that Magda was alive, was in [music] captivity among the Bedouins, and was demanding $50,000 for her release.
It was a huge sum for an ordinary Polish family, but Magda’s parents were ready to raise the money. They contacted the Egyptian authorities and the consulate, asking them to arrange for the transfer of money and the release of their daughter. But Egyptian police insisted that paying the ransom was illegal and would only encourage the kidnappers.
Instead, they promised to carry out a rescue operation if Magda’s whereabouts could be established. The negotiations reached an impasse. The kidnappers did not want to reveal the exact location until they received the money. The police did not want to pay the ransom. Several weeks passed and the connection was lost.
The head of the family decided that this girl was too much trouble and began looking for other options. In August, he sold Magda on to a man who was involved in smuggling people to Libya. The deal was completed for $3,000. Magda was taken west, closer to the Libyan border. In 2021, Libya continued to experience civil war and chaos following the overthrow of Gaddafi.
The country was divided between several warring factions. The central government did not control most of the territory. Under these conditions, human trafficking flourished . Thousands of African migrants attempting to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea have found themselves in the hands of Libyan gangs, who have held them in concentration camps, held them ransom, sold them into slavery, or forced them to work.
European hostages were rare, but they did occur. Magda was held in one of these camps on the outskirts of the city of Tabruk, near the Egyptian border. The conditions were appalling. Dozens of people in one room, minimal food and water, unsanitary conditions, illness. She was forced to work at a construction site, carrying bricks and bags of cement.
The guards were brutal and used violence for the slightest disobedience. Magda saw other prisoners being beaten . I saw deaths from disease and exhaustion. She understood that if they didn’t find a way to get out, she would die here within a few months. In September 2021, the camp owners attempted to sell Magda further.
They connected with criminal networks that smuggle people into Europe. A buyer was found in Italy who was looking for white women for brothels. The transaction amount was 10,000 euros. Magda’s documents were forged, her photograph was taken, and a fake passport was made. The plan was to transport her by sea to Italy on one of the migrant boats and hand her over to the buyer there.
Magda learned about this plan from one of the guards who spoke English. She understood that if she fell into the hands of human traffickers in Italy , there would be no chance of release at all. On September 23, a group of thirty people, including Magda, were loaded into a truck and driven to the coast.
The journey took several hours. They were brought to a fishing village where a rubber boat, overcrowded with people, stood on the shore. They were mostly Africans, migrants from Somalia, Eritrea, Nigeria, trying to reach Europe. Magda was pushed into the boat with the others. There were about 100 people in the boat, although it was designed for a maximum of 50.
Everyone was given life jackets, but half of them were faulty. The boat was taken out to sea and abandoned. The people were given direction coordinates and told that a ship would pick them up in a few hours. The boat sailed in the open sea for about 6 hours. The weather was relatively calm, the waves were small.
Magda sat in the middle of the boat, squeezed in on all sides by other people. Many were praying, some were crying, children were screaming. The boat’s engine was running at its limit and stalled several times. Towards evening a ship appeared in the distance. It was an Italian coast guard patrol ship .
They patrolled these waters, intercepting boats carrying migrants. When the ship approached, lifeboats were lowered from it and people began to be evacuated from the rubber boat. Magda was one of the last to be lifted on board . On the ship, everyone was placed on the deck, given water, food, and warm blankets.
Doctors examined people and provided first aid. Magda was in shock, exhausted, dehydrated. When Italian officers began questioning the rescued people and establishing their identities, Magda said that she was a Polish citizen and that she had been kidnapped in Egypt five months ago. The officers didn’t believe her at first, thinking she was making up a story to get asylum.
But she gave her details, her passport number, which she remembered by heart, her parents’ names, and her address in Warsaw. Officers checked the information through Interpol databases. Magda had indeed been missing since April 2021. She was immediately separated from the other migrants, placed in a separate cabin, and a doctor was called.
contacted the Polish consulate in Rome. The next day, September 24, the ship arrived at the port of Lampedusa, an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea that serves as the first port of call for migrants. Magda was handed over to representatives of the Polish consulate. She was taken to a hospital on the island, where she spent three days under medical observation.
She was physically exhausted, had many minor injuries and infections, but no serious damage. The psychological state was severe. She was in post-traumatic shock. On September 27, Magda was transported to Rome, where she was met by her parents, who had flown in from Poland. It was an emotional meeting.
The mother cried, hugged her daughter, and couldn’t believe that she was alive. The father stood silently, unable to speak. Magda also cried, allowing herself to show her emotions for the first time in 5 months. That same day they flew to Warsaw. At home, Magda gave her first testimony to the Polish police. She told everything she remembered: the kidnapping, the road in the desert, the first Bedouin family, the sale, the camp in Libya, the boat.
She described people, places, and events in as much detail as possible. Polish police passed the information on to their Egyptian colleagues. The investigation into the case has resumed with renewed vigor. It was now known for certain that the girls had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. Egyptian authorities launched an operation to find Kasi, who was still in captivity.
Magda gave a description of the area where she was held for the first weeks, but did not know the exact coordinates. Investigators used satellite maps to try to identify possible locations based on her descriptions. A new round of surveys of Bedouins in the region has begun . But another 3 months passed without results. Kasya was never found.
Egyptian police carried out raids on several Bedouin settlements, but each time they either received false information or arrived too late. Bedouins warned each other of approaching police via mobile phones and radios. By the time the police arrived at the settlement, all the suspicious people had already been hidden or moved.
The system of mutual responsibility among the Bedouin clans worked effectively. A breakthrough occurred in December 2021. One of the Bedouins, who had debts to the authorities, agreed to become an informant in exchange for the charges being dropped. He knew of several European women who were being held in the desert by various families.
According to his information, one of them could have been Kasya. She was in a very remote village where few people go. The informant gave approximate coordinates and agreed to show the way. On December 8, Egyptian police launched an operation. A group of twenty special forces officers in several SUVs set out into the desert under the guidance of an informant.
We drove at night so as not to attract attention. The journey took about 4 hours. They arrived at the settlement at dawn, surrounded the houses, and entered with machine guns. In one of the houses, they found a white woman in Bedouin clothing working at a well. She was afraid of the armed men and tried to run away, but they stopped her.
When asked her name, she was silent at first, then said in Polish: “Ka!” It was a shock to everyone. Kasia looked completely different from the photos from April. She was emaciated, tanned to blackness, in rags, her hair matted and dirty, but it was her. The officers wrapped her in a blanket and led her out of the house.
The Soleh family did not resist, realizing that there was nowhere to run. All adult family members were arrested on the spot and put in cars. The children were left in the care of relatives from a neighboring settlement. The group returned to Hurghada for lunch. Kasia was taken to the hospital, where she spent a week under the supervision of doctors.
Her physical condition was serious. Severe exhaustion, dehydration, multiple skin infections, worms, vitamin deficiency. Her psychological state was even worse. She had difficulty speaking, could not concentrate, and cried constantly. Psychologists diagnosed acute post-traumatic stress disorder. disorder.
She was afraid to be alone in the room, afraid of men, and couldn’t sleep [music] at night. These were classic symptoms of prolonged captivity and slavery. Kasia’s parents arrived in Hurghada on December 15th. The meeting with their daughter was difficult. Kasia didn’t immediately recognize them; she looked at them distantly, as if she didn’t understand what was happening.
Only a few hours later, when her mother hugged her and began speaking in Polish, something clicked in her mind, and she burst into tears. It was catharsis, an outlet for the emotions that had pent up over eight months. The doctors gave her a sedative. [music] On December 20th, the family flew to Warsaw. In Poland, both girls began the long process of recovery.
Magda recovered faster. She had spent five months in captivity. And although the ordeal was difficult, she was psychologically stronger. Kasia, on the other hand, had spent eight months in slavery under harsher conditions, with no hope of release. Her psyche was broken more deeply. She saw a psychotherapist.
Three times a week, she took antidepressants, and underwent rehabilitation. Gradually, very slowly, she began to return to normal life, but a full recovery was impossible. The scars remained forever, both physical and psychological. Both girls gave detailed statements to the Polish prosecutor’s office.
Their statements were forwarded to Egyptian authorities for the criminal prosecution of the kidnappers. In Egypt, a case was opened under articles of kidnapping , human trafficking, and illegal deprivation of liberty. More than ten people were arrested: members of two Bedouin families who held the girls, the intermediaries who organized the sale, and the guide Ahmed, who was finally found in February 2022.
He was identified by the mobile phone he used to contact relatives. He was arrested in Cairo, where he was hiding with friends. The investigation in Egypt lasted about a year. They collected evidence, interviewed witnesses, conducted forensic examinations. The case was complex because most of the events took place in remote areas without witnesses, documents, or records.
The main The evidence included the victims’ own testimony and the confessions of some of the accused. Saleh, the old man who held Kosya for the last months, partially admitted guilt. He said he had bought the girl for housework, not realizing it was a crime. In his understanding, it was a simple transaction. The other defendants denied guilt entirely, claiming they knew nothing about the abduction and that the girls had come to them voluntarily.
The defendants’ defense was based on the assertion that Bedouin traditions allow for the purchase of workers, and that this is not slavery in the legal sense, but a form of labor contract, albeit an informal one. The defense cited the fact that the girls were given food and blood in exchange for work, a common practice in desert regions.
However, the prosecutor’s office insisted that the girls were held against their will, deprived of freedom of movement, and forced to work without pay, which constitutes slavery under the Egyptian penal code and international conventions. The key defendant was the guide, Ahmed. He organized the abduction, lured the girls into the desert under the guise of a tourist excursion, and received money from The kidnappers.
During interrogation, he initially denied everything, claiming that he had simply taken the tourists to the village at their request, and that they had then decided to stay. But investigators found records of bank transfers to his account in the period after the kidnapping. The amounts did not match his official income.
They also found instant messaging messages with one of the kidnappers, where the details of the deal were discussed. Under pressure from the evidence, Akhmet began to testify. He said that he had been working for a criminal network that had been kidnapping tourists for several years. His job was to find suitable victims, mostly young women traveling alone, lure them into the desert, and hand them over to the kidnappers.
For each successful operation, he received between $2,000 and $3,000. Over three years, he organized the kidnapping of seven tourists from different countries. Kasia and Magda were the last on this list. This information shocked the investigation. This means there were other victims.
The prosecutor’s office began reviewing the data on missing tourists for the period from 2018 to 2021. Year. Five cases of foreign women disappearing in the Hurghada area under similar circumstances were discovered. Two of them were from Ukraine, one from Romania, and two from Russia. All of them had come on vacation, taken excursions into the desert, and then vanished without a trace.
Their cases were closed as accidents or unauthorized disappearances. Now it has become clear that they could all have been victims of the same criminal network. Egyptian authorities launched a large-scale operation to find these women, using information from Ahmed and other arrested individuals, combing desert areas, and checking hundreds of Bedouin settlements.
Over the course of three months, from March to May 2022, three more women were found. One 28-year-old Ukrainian woman was found in a settlement hundreds of kilometers from the city of Safaga. She had spent two years in captivity, working for a Bedouin family. Her mental state was critical. The second woman, a 23-year-old Russian woman, was found in the area between Hurghada and Elkuseir. She had been in captivity.
A year and 4 months. The third Romanian woman, 31, was discovered by chance during a police raid on a separate case. She had been enslaved for 3 years and 2 months, the longest. Her physical and psychological condition was so severe that she required lengthy hospitalization. The other two women on the list were never found.
According to the testimony of Ahmed and other accused, one of them died in captivity from an illness about a year after her abduction. The second was sold across the border to Sudan. Her subsequent fate is unknown. The Egyptian prosecutor’s office sent a request to the Sudanese authorities, but there was no response . Sudan was at the time experiencing an internal political crisis following a military coup.
International cooperation was minimal. The trial of the accused began in July 2022 in the Hurghada Criminal Court. The case was heard by a panel of three judges. There were 13 people in the dock. Git Ahmed, members of the Bedouin families who held the girls, and the intermediaries who organized the sale. The prosecution included Kidnapping, human trafficking, unlawful imprisonment, and forced labor.
The maximum penalty for these offenses was life imprisonment. The trial lasted three months. The prosecutor’s office presented an extensive evidence base: victim statements, confessions of some of the accused, bank records, instant messaging , and witness testimony. The defense attempted to challenge the victims’ testimony, arguing that they were stressed and could confuse details.
They tried to portray the Bedouin defendants as simple people who didn’t understand the laws and lived by ancient traditions. But the facts were irrefutable. Forensic examinations confirmed that the girls were held in conditions consistent with slavery. Medical reports showed signs of prolonged physical labor, malnutrition, and violence.
On October 23, 2022, exactly 18 months after the kidnapping, the court announced the verdict. Ahmed received 25 years in prison. This was the harshest sentence, given his central role in organizing the crimes. Chapters The Bedouin families who purchased the girls received sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years. The intermediaries received sentences ranging from 10 to 15 years.
The wives of the heads of families, who directly controlled the girls and forced them to work, received sentences ranging from 7 to 12 years. All defendants were given large fines, which were to go toward compensating the victims. However, collecting this money was virtually impossible, as most of the defendants had no property.
The sentence was harsh by Egyptian standards. Cases involving Bedouins were typically handled more leniently, taking into account cultural considerations. But in this case, international pressure and public outcry forced the court to impose an exemplary punishment. The defense appealed, but the appellate court upheld the sentence in February 2023, only slightly reducing the sentences of some minor defendants.
This story reveals a dark side of the tourism industry that is rarely discussed openly. Every year, millions of people travel to exotic destinations, trusting their safety to local companies and guides. Most return. While some return home with wonderful memories, others are faced with a reality where human life is precious, where criminals exploit tourists’ trust to profit.
The case of Kasia and Magda has become emblematic of this problem, a reminder that even popular tourist destinations harbor dangers many are unaware of.
