A Ukrainian woman was kidnapped in the middle of the desert during a routine vacation in Egypt and sold to a local clan for $5,000, where she spent 5 years, gave birth to four children, and lived as a slave [music] until her husband found her through an informant within the tribe. Andrei and Yulia lived in one of the regional centers in Eastern Ukraine.

He worked as an engineer at a local enterprise, she as an accountant at a private firm. They met at university and got married a year after graduation. They lived together for 8 years until the moment that changed everything. They did not have children, although both wanted them, but put it off due to financial issues.

Their life was standard for their social class, a mortgage, a car loan, and annual vacations to affordable countries. Egypt was a logical choice for their March vacation. Warm weather, the sea, affordable prices, direct charter flights from the regional center. They bought a package through a local travel agency.

 It was a typical package tour, flight, beachfront hotel in Hurghada, all-inclusive meals, several excursions to choose from. The cost for two was around $400, which was within their budget. The departure was scheduled for early March 2018. They flew out in the morning and arrived in the middle of the day local time. The transfer from the airport to the hotel went smoothly.

The first 3 days were spent in the usual way, beach, pool, visiting local shops and cafes. Yulia photographed everything and posted it on social media. Andrei spent more time by the sea. On the fourth day, they decided to take a trip to the desert. It was one of the most popular offers from tour operators, a quad bike ride, a visit to a Bedouin village, dinner under the stars, and a return in the evening.

The price for two was $80, which seemed reasonable. They signed up through the hotel guide and were included in a group with 12 other tourists. The group was international. Three Russians, a married couple from Belarus, two girls from Poland, four Germans, and them. The departure was scheduled for the morning with a return at 8:00 in the evening.

The bus picked them up from the hotel in the morning. The driver and guide spoke broken English and Russian. The route was standard, departure from the tourist area of Hurghada into the desert, where there was a Bedouin settlement adapted for tourists. There they were shown traditional tents, offered camel rides, and given local bread and tea to try.

Then they were taken on quad bikes across the sand dunes. Everything was organized so the tourists could experience authenticity without any real risk. The only problem was the hot weather, but everyone was warned to drink plenty of water. The program ended at 6:00 in the evening.

 The group returned to the bus for the trip back to the hotel. The journey was supposed 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 the tour guide tried to do something under the hood, but it quickly became clear that the problem could not be solved on the spot.

The tour guide called the company that organized the tour. The answer was standard. They would send a replacement bus, but it would take at least 2 hours, as they needed to arrange for a vehicle and driver, as well as transportation to and from the hotel. The tourists got off the bus. It was already around 7:30 p.m.

 The sun was setting and the temperature was dropping. The bus had stopped in the middle of a road connecting the tourist area with the interior. The road was not a highway, but rather a two-lane road with asphalt pavement of poor quality. Few cars passed by. Some people had cell service, others did not, depending on their carrier.

 Yulia managed to text her friend that they were stuck on the road and would have to wait. Andrei took a photo of the broken-down bus with a caption about adventures in the desert. After an hour of waiting, when it was already completely dark, some of the group began to get nervous. The Germans suggested walking to the nearest settlement, which according to the guide, was a few kilometers away in the direction of Hurghada.

The guide said it was better to stay with the bus and wait for help, but four Germans and two Polish girls decided to go anyway. Yulia and Andrei hesitated at first, but then decided to join those who were walking. Another Russian couple also went. A total of eight people set off on foot 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 that passing drivers would notice them. After half an hour of walking, a truck drove by, but didn’t stop. The group began to doubt the correctness of their decision.

They discussed whether to return to the bus, but the road back seemed long, so they decided to continue. 20 minutes later, they heard the sound of an engine approaching from behind. They turned around and saw headlights. It was a pickup truck. The group positioned themselves so that the car would notice them and began waving their arms.

 The pickup slowed down and stopped nearby. Four men in traditional clothing were sitting in the back and two more were in the cab. One of the passengers in the cab got out and approached the group. He spoke in Arabic, then switched to English. He asked what had happened. They explained about the broken-down bus. He said something to his companions, then offered to drive them to the nearest town, where they could make a phone call or wait for help.

 The Germans agreed immediately. So did the Polish girls. The Russian couple hesitated, but then decided it was better to go than to walk for who knows how long. Andrei and Yulia also agreed. All eight tourists were loaded into the back of the pickup truck. There was little room, so they had to stand or sit on the sides. The pickup truck started moving.

At first, they drove along the road in the same direction as the tourists had been walking. After a few minutes, the pickup truck turned off the main road onto a side dirt road. One of the Germans asked where they were going. The driver said it was a shorter route to the settlement.

 The dirt road was narrow and bumpy. The pickup truck shook. After another 10 minutes, the pickup truck stopped. The men in the back got up and took out their weapons. They were automatic rifles and pistols. The tourists began to panic. One of the Polish girls screamed. The men began shouting in Arabic, gesturing for everyone to be quiet and not move.

The tourists were forced to get out of the pickup truck and line up on the sand. All phones, bags, and documents were taken. They checked the contents, took money and valuables. Then they began to divide the tourists. The Germans and the Russian couple were taken aside. The Polish girls, too. Yulia was grabbed separately.

 Andrei tried to intervene, but one of the armed men hit him on the head with the butt of his rifle. He fell onto the sand. Yulia screamed and tried to break free, but they held her tightly. Andrei was hit several more times. He lost consciousness. When he came to, his head was splitting with pain and his nose was bleeding.

Yulia was not there. The other tourists were also gone. Two men standing nearby were speaking Arabic. Andrei tried to get up, but they pushed him down again. After a while, they dragged him back into the pickup truck, drove him several kilometers along a dirt road, and threw him out on the side of an asphalt road.

He lay on the side of the road for about an hour until a car drove by. The driver stopped and called the police. Andrei was taken to the nearest police station. There he tried to explain what had happened. The police recorded his statement, but their response was slow. He was sent to the hospital. He had a concussion, bruises, and a broken nose.

He was kept in the hospital for a day. Then the police returned and asked additional questions. Andrei asked about Yulia and the other tourists. He was told that an investigation was underway. They contacted the tour company. It turned out that the rest of the group, who had stayed with the bus, had returned safely to the hotel in replacement transport.

The company only found out about the disappearance of the eight tourists who had left on foot when they did not show up at the hotel. The police organized a search. They checked the section of the road where the group had been walking. They found several personal items scattered in the desert away from the road.

But the tourists themselves were nowhere to be found. Two days later, they found three more, a Russian couple and one of the Polish girls. They had also been dumped on the road in different places, beaten, without documents or money. They told the same story, a pickup truck, armed men, kidnapping. But the second Polish girl and the four Germans were not found.

 Neither was Yulia. In the following days, the police continued their search. The consulates of the respective countries were involved. The case gained international attention. The kidnapping of tourists in Egypt was not the first such incident. In 2012 and 2013, Bedouin tribes on the Sinai Peninsula repeatedly kidnapped tourist groups demanding the release of their relatives from prison.

But those cases ended quickly with the tourists being released a day or two after negotiations. This situation was different. There were no ransom demands. There was no contact from the kidnappers. Some of the tourists were released while the rest were taken to an unknown location. Andrei’s documents were processed for his return home through the Ukrainian consulate.

He refused to leave without Yulia. He demanded that the Egyptian police continue their active search. The consulate explained that the Egyptian authorities were doing everything possible, but the territory was vast. The desert was poorly controlled and the Bedouin clans lived by their own laws and did not cooperate with official structures.

Andrei spent another week in Egypt trying to find out something himself, but to no avail. In the end, he was persuaded to return to Ukraine and wait for information from official channels. Upon his return, he filed reports with all possible authorities. He 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 other missing tourists were also not found. Their families in Germany and Poland did the same. They demanded searches and appealed to international organizations, but time passed and there was no new information.

Yulia was taken in a different direction. After Andrei was thrown out 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 who wouldn’t let her stand 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 had arrived at a small settlement in the middle of the desert. It was a group of about 20 buildings made of stone and clay with flat roofs.

There were pens for goats and sheep around them. There were no signs of modern infrastructure, no power lines, no water pipes, 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 the control of the state.

Julia was pulled out of the pickup truck and led into one of the buildings. There were several men and women in traditional clothing. 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, examined her, and said something to the others.

Then they took her to a small windowless room 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 trying to understand what was happening and what they were going to do with her. In the evening, the door was opened and food was brought in, flatbread 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 accompanied by an elderly woman who spoke very poor English. Through her, the man said that Julia now belonged to him, that she had been bought from those who had brought her, and that she would live and work there.

Julia tried to explain that she was a tourist, that she had a husband, that people were looking for her, that this was a crime. The woman translated and the man replied briefly. The translation was simple. There is no police here, no state, only the laws of the clan. And now she is his property. That night, the abuse began.

He raped her several times. She screamed and resisted, but he was much stronger physically and no one responded to her cries. In the morning, she was taken out of the room and shown what she had to do. Her job was to carry water from a well a few hundred meters from the settlement, cook meals, care for animals, and clean.

All the women in the settlement worked, including the wives of the man who bought her. He had two wives, both local, both older than Julia. They treated her with contempt and indifference. During the first few weeks, Julia tried to escape. Twice at night, she left the settlement and tried to walk in the direction where, as she thought, civilization should be.

Both times she was caught within a few hours. The desert is open, footprints are visible, dogs could smell the direction. After the first escape, she was beaten. After the second, they beat her more severely and kept her tied up in the same room for several days without food, giving her only water. After that, >> [music] >> she stopped trying to run away physically, realizing that without knowledge of the area, without water and food, she would die in the desert faster than she would reach populated areas.

Her documents were burned on the first day. Her passport, money, cards, everything was destroyed. Her phone was taken on the road during the kidnapping. She had no connection to the outside world. She tried to talk to the women in the settlement trying to find someone who understood English or Russian, but most of them spoke nothing but Arabic, and those who knew a few words of English were afraid to talk to her.

Later, she realized that the system was simple. The men of the clan controlled everything. The women obeyed and any attempt to help a stranger was considered a betrayal of the clan. After a few months, it became clear that she was pregnant. Her period stopped. She began to feel nauseous and her body was changing.

She was not provided with any medical care. Her pregnancy proceeded under the same conditions, work, violence, minimal food. The only thing that changed was that towards the end of her pregnancy, she was no longer required to do heavy work with water and animals, but she continued to cook and clean until the last days.

She gave birth in the same room where she lived without doctors or a hospital. An elderly woman from the settlement who acted as a midwife for all the women in the clan delivered the baby. The first child was born at the end of 2018, about 9 months after the abduction. It was a boy. The delivery was difficult without pain relief, with tears and bleeding.

The midwife did something using her own methods, stopping the bleeding with herbs and cloth. Julia thought she would die, but she survived. The baby was taken away almost immediately and given to one of the man’s wives who fed him along with her own child. Julia was allowed to see her son, but rarely. She was seen not as a mother, but as an incubator and a source of labor.

A few months after giving birth, it all happened again. Again, violence. Again, pregnancy. The second child was born in 2020, also a boy. The birth was a little easier, but Julia’s health was deteriorating. She was losing weight despite her pregnancy. Her diet was meager, flatbread, 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 sunburned and cracked from constant work in the sun. She was turning into an emaciated woman who bore little resemblance to the one who had come to Egypt on vacation. Her third child was born in 2021, a girl.

The fourth in 2023, another girl. After her fourth childbirth, Julia was physically on the verge of collapse, chronic exhaustion, anemia, kidney problems, scars from childbirth and years of abuse. Psychologically, she was in a state that could be described as a mixture of Stockholm syndrome and complete despair.

She became attached to her children. It was the only emotional connection that kept her from complete mental breakdown. She was afraid of the man who had bought her, but at the same time, she could no longer see any alternative to this life. Her memories of her former life were becoming increasingly blurred and unreal.

At the same time, thousands of kilometers away from her, Andrei continued his search. He spent the first year trying to get in touch with the authorities. He went to Kiev, met with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, human rights organizations, and journalists. Yulia’s story periodically appeared in the news, but without new facts, interest quickly faded.

The Egyptian side responded to official inquiries with a standard reply. The investigation is ongoing, but there are no leads, and 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 study the topic of kidnappings in Egypt on his own. He learned about cases from 2009 to 2015 when Bedouin clans in Sinai kidnapped African refugees en masse, held them in the desert, tortured them, demanded ransom, and sold those for whom no one paid into slavery or killed them. According to various estimates, more than 30,000 people went through this system.

Many human rights organizations documented these cases, but there were few real mechanisms for freeing people. Andrei contacted one such organization, an Italian human rights group that specialized in cases of human trafficking in North Africa. A woman named Maria worked there who had been involved in freeing people from slavery in Sinai for several years.

She explained to Andrei that official channels were almost useless in such cases. The Egyptian authorities do not control the Bedouin clans in the desert and the clans themselves live by their own laws. The only way to find a person is to work through informants within these clans, through people who are willing to pass on information for money.

Maria agreed to help but warned that the process could take years and that there were no guarantees. Andrei agreed to any conditions. He sold his apartment and car and took out loans to have money to pay informants, travel, and bribes. Maria connected her network of contacts in Egypt.

 These were people who worked with refugees, Bedouins, traders, and local activists. Information was gathered bit by bit. First, they needed to figure out which region the kidnapped people might be in. Sinai was too large an area with dozens of clans. The first lead came 8 months after they began working with Maria. One of the informants reported hearing from traders about a group of European tourists who had been sold to several clans in the spring of 2018.

The information was vague. There were no names or specific locations, but at least it confirmed that some of the kidnapped people might have survived and were being held in slavery. Andrei insisted on continuing the search. Every few months new information would come in, but it was always fragmentary and unverified.

Andrei traveled to Egypt eight times in 5 years. Each time he tried to gather information on his own, talking to people in areas bordering the desert, paying for any rumors and hints. It was dangerous. Bedouin clans did not like outside interference and he was warned several times that if he continued to ask questions, there could be problems, but he did not stop.

 For him, Julia was alive until proven 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 was living in one of the clans south of Sinai. The description was vague.

 Fair skin, light hair, does not speak Arabic, works like the other women in the clan. The informant could not give the exact location of the settlement, but indicated the approximate area and the name of the clan leader. Andrei and Maria began to verify this information. They needed to find out if it was really Julia. They hired another person, a local, who could infiltrate the area posing as a merchant or a relative of someone in the clan.

This took several more months. In early 2023, this person was able to enter the settlement and see a woman matching the description from a distance. He couldn’t get close or talk to her, but he took several photos with his phone from a distance. The quality was poor, but when Andrei received the photos, he recognized Julia by her silhouette, the way she moved, and the scar on her left arm, which was visible even in the blurry photo.

This was a turning point. Now there was a precise location and confirmation that she was alive, but the problem was how to get her out of there. It was not possible to simply arrive and take her away. The clan was armed, the territory was controlled, and any attempt at a forceful rescue could result in the death of Julia and the children.

Maria suggested the only realistic option, to organize an operation through the 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 it was framed as an operation against arms or drug smuggling, then a raid could be carried out with formal justification. Through her contacts, Maria reached out to one of the Egyptian security forces officers who was involved in operations in desert areas. They offered him a deal, information about the location of a large weapons cash in exchange for the evacuation of a European woman and her children who were there illegally during the raid.

The officer agreed, but demanded a significant amount of money as a guarantee of the operation’s confidentiality. Andrei gave him the last money he had. The operation was scheduled for February 2023. It was a night raid involving several vehicles and armed personnel. Andrei could not participate directly, but was in the nearest town waiting for the outcome.

The raid went quickly. The settlement was surrounded, the men of the clan were detained, and a search was conducted. Formally, they were looking for weapons. Julia and her four children were taken away separately, put in one of the cars, and driven out of the settlement. The clan leader, the very man who had bought her and kept her all these years, was arrested on formal charges of illegal possession of weapons.

Nothing was said in the official documents about slavery, human trafficking, or violence. Julia and the children were taken to Cairo to a safe place where they were met by representatives of the Ukrainian consulate and Andrei. It was their first meeting in 5 years. The meeting took place in one of the rooms of the Ukrainian consulate in Cairo.

Andrei was waiting in a small room when Julia and the children were brought in. The door opened and he saw her for the first time in 5 years. She looked like a different person. She was emaciated, her skin was dark and weather-beaten. Her hair was tangled and short and her face was covered with deep wrinkles that should not have been there on a 34-year-old woman.

She was dressed in traditional Bedouin clothing, which the consulate had given her to replace the clothes she had arrived in. Standing next to her were four children, boys about 4 and 3 years old, girls about 2 years old, and a baby in her arms. Andrei 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. There was something between fear and indifference. The consulate employee who was present at the meeting quietly explained to Andrei that she needed time, that she was in shock, that it was not worth rushing. Andrei sat down on a chair trying to control his emotions.

Julia sat down opposite him. The children huddled close to her. The older boy looked at Andrei suspiciously. For the first few days, Julia hardly spoke. She was taken to a medical facility in Cairo where she underwent initial examinations. The diagnoses were serious, chronic exhaustion, severe anemia, kidney problems, urinary tract infections, multiple scars from childbirth and trauma, an 18 kg weight loss from her normal weight, 11 destroyed teeth, and signs of osteoporosis.

Her psychological condition was assessed as severe post-traumatic stress disorder with elements of Stockholm syndrome. She could not sleep without her children nearby, panicked at the sight of unfamiliar men, and refused some medical procedures. Andrei remained in Cairo trying to establish contact. Julia only started talking to him on the third day and even then only in short sentences.

She asked what would happen to the children, afraid that they would be taken away. Andrei tried to explain that they were safe, that they were being taken to Ukraine, that everything would be fine. She didn’t believe him. She repeated that the children had to be with her, otherwise they would be killed. There was no logic in her words, but her fear was real.

The psychologist who was counseling her explained to Andrei that years of violence, isolation, and constant stress had destroyed her normal mechanisms for perceiving reality. For her, the only security was her children and any attempts to separate them was perceived as a threat to her life. The children’s documents became a separate problem.

 Formally, they were born on Egyptian territory, but without medical care, without registration, without being recorded by the state authorities. They had no birth certificates, no father in the legal sense, and no citizenship. The Egyptian authorities did not want to issue documents, recognizing 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, the mother’s testimony, and approval from the Egyptian side were needed. After 2 weeks in Cairo, they managed to arrange their return to Ukraine. Yulia was issued a temporary entry document, and the children were given similar papers as accompanying persons without citizenship.

It was a legal compromise that allowed them to be taken out of Egypt with the promise to complete the paperwork in Ukraine. The departure was organized on a special flight with medical assistance. Yulia refused to fly without her children in the same row, so they were given a separate area on the plane. Andrei 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, doctors, and child welfare services. Yulia and the children were immediately taken to the hospital for a full examination and treatment. Andrei went with them. More detailed diagnostics began at the hospital. Yulia’s physical condition was critical.

She required treatment for anemia, kidney restoration, dental intervention, and gynecological surgery to address the consequences of giving birth without medical assistance. Doctors estimated that her recovery would take at least a year with intensive therapy. Her psychological condition 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, she exhibited Stockholm syndrome. She defended the memory of the man who had kept her in slavery. She said that he fed her, gave her a roof over her head, did not kill her, and that without him, her children would have died.

When psychologists tried to explain that this man was her rapist and a criminal, she shut down 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 older boy was 4 years old, spoke only Arabic, was afraid of everyone except his mother, and became aggressive when doctors tried to examine him.

The second boy was apathetic and hardly reacted to those around him. The girls were too young to assess their psychological state, but physically, all the children were emaciated and lagged behind in their development compared to age norms. They were placed in the children’s ward of the hospital, but Yulia categorically refused to be separated from them.

As a result, a ward was organized where she could be with her children at all times. Andrei tried to rebuild their relationship, but it proved impossible. Yulia did not perceive him as her 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 pictures of strangers.

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 her suffering. Andrei continued to visit every day, bringing food and toys for the children and trying to talk to her, but she treated him like a stranger who, for some reason, was always around.

At the same time, legal proceedings began. The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs opened a criminal case on the grounds of human trafficking and unlawful deprivation of liberty, but the problem was that the crime had been committed on Egyptian territory. The criminals were still there, and cooperation between the law enforcement agencies of the two countries was minimal.

The Egyptian side officially confirmed that in February 20 a raid was carried out against arms smuggling, during which several people were detained, and a foreign citizen was freed. But there was no mention of human trafficking charges. Those detained were convicted under articles on illegal possession of weapons and sentenced to terms ranging from two to five years.

These were laughable punishments for what had actually happened. Ukrainian investigators tried to gather evidence for an international investigation. They took Yulia’s testimony, but she was confused about dates, could not remember names, and could not accurately describe the place where she was held. Her condition made her testimony legally weak.

 Medical reports confirmed the fact of prolonged violence and exhaustion, but did not establish a direct link to specific individuals. The children could not be witnesses because of their age. DNA tests showed that all four children had the same biological father, but without a DNA sample from that person, this was simply information with no legal consequences.

Several journalists wrote articles, but the subject was too heavy and complex for mass attention. In addition, Yulia refused to give interviews, did not want to be filmed, and did not want her face to be shown. Andrei gave several comments in which he talked about 5 years of searching, what he had to go through, and 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 3 months of treatment, Yulia was discharged from the hospital. Her physical condition improved. She began to regain weight, her infections were cured, and she began dental prosthetics, but her psychological state remained severe. She was provided with social housing, a small apartment where she could live with her children.

Andrei offered his help, suggesting they live together and rebuild their family. Yulia refused. She did not want a man around. Any male presence caused her anxiety. Andrei continued to help financially and visited the children, but he understood that their marriage had effectively ended the moment she was taken to the desert 5 years ago.

 The older boy and girls began to be prepared for kindergarten, but the process was slow. They did not speak Ukrainian, did not socialize well, and were afraid of strangers. Yulia herself was learning to live in society again. Going to the store was a challenge. There were people, noise, men. [music] She would return home and not leave for days.

The psychologist who worked with her said that full recovery might never happen, that the best she could hope for was to adapt to basic life functions and manage her PTSD symptoms. The question of punishing those responsible remained open. The clan leader who bought Yulia and kept her in slavery for 5 years served 2 years in an Egyptian prison on a formal charge and was released.

The people who organized the kidnapping on the road were never found. The Egyptian authorities closed the case as solved. Ukrainian investigators continued to formally pursue 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 the phenomenon.

As for the other kidnapped tourists from the same group, four Germans and one Polish girl, their fate remains unknown. Although Yulia was found, no traces of the others were discovered. Perhaps they were sold to other clans, perhaps they died, perhaps they are in the same situation Yulia was in for 5 years, but in other settlements that informants have not reached.

Their families continue to wait and search, but the chances are getting slimmer every year. Yulia’s story highlights several systemic problems. The first is the vulnerability of tourists in countries where desert areas are effectively uncontrolled by the state and where Bedouin clans live by their own laws.

 The second is the failure of international cooperation mechanisms in investigating crimes when the victim is from one country, the perpetrators are in another, and no one is willing to solve the case. The third is the invisibility of the problem of human trafficking in regions where it has been going on for years, but is not reflected in statistics or the media.

The fourth is the lack of real help for victims after their release, when a person has been formally rescued, but remains psychologically and socially broken. Yulia survived physically, but the woman who flew to Egypt 5 years ago for a normal beach vacation ceased to exist. In her place is a traumatized, sick, psychologically broken woman with four children born into slavery, trying to survive in a world to which she no longer belongs.

Andrei lost his wife, spent all his money and 5 years of his life searching, but got back a person who does not recognize him and does not want to know him. The criminals went unpunished. The system remained unchanged. The story ended not with a victory for justice, but with a statement of fact. In the desert between Sinai and the Red Sea, a few hours drive from tourist resorts, people still live in slavery, and the world prefers not to know about it.