Tewelde Goitom

Tewelde Goitom, or Walid or Welid, (born c. 1984) is an Eritrean human trafficker and smuggler.

Between 2014 and 2018, he was "at the heart of a particularly brutal and lucrative trade in desperate migrants trying to reach Europe" and boasted that he moved "15,000 people across the sea to Europe in 2015 alone".

He was arrested in March 2020, tried and in 2021 found guilty and sentencted to 18 years in prison in Ethiopia. Eritrean journalist Meron Estefanos predicted that he would be able to bribe his guards and escape like ringleader Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam, who had escaped detention in mid-February 2021.

In 2022, Ethiopia extradited Tewelde Goitom to the Netherlands and on January 10, 2023, he appeared at a pretrial hearing in the Dutch town of Zwolle, where he claimed he was a victim of mistaken identity. The prosecution wanted to join his case with that of Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam, who had been arrested again January 1, 2023 in Khartoum, Sudan.

Goitom's trial began on 3 November 2025. On 27 January 2026, the Overijssel District Court handed down the maximum sentence of 20 years' jail due to both the nature and scale of the crimes; victims mentioned "a litany of abuses, including torture, starvation, and sexual violence, painting a chilling picture of daily life within these detention sites".

See also

References

  1. ↑ Quell, Molly. "Dutch court opens trial of accused Eritrean human trafficker". www.courthousenews.com. Archived from the original on 2024-06-13. Retrieved 2025-08-18.
  2. 1 2 "How Did One of North Africa's Biggest Human Traffickers Escape Prison?". Vice.com. Archived from the original on 2024-08-12. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
  3. ↑ "Así se fugó Kidane, uno de los traficantes de personas más crueles de África". Todonoticia.cl (in Spanish). 2021-03-01. Archived from the original on 2021-05-08. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
  4. ↑ "Migrations. "Walid", l'un des pires trafiquants d'êtres humains en Afrique, condamné en Éthiopie". Courrier international (in French). 2021-05-07. Archived from the original on 2021-05-07. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
  5. ↑ Hayden, Sally. "People trafficking: 'They were killers. They have raped many women'". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 2023-05-19. Retrieved 2021-05-08.
  6. ↑ Hayden, Sally. "Notorious human trafficker extradited to Netherlands from Ethiopia". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 2025-11-06. Retrieved 2025-11-03.
  7. ↑ Girma, Kaleab; Hayden, Sally (30 April 2021). "'Cruel' trafficker accused of torturing refugees found guilty in Ethiopia". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 May 2021.
  8. ↑ "Alleged Eritrean People Smuggler Appears in Dutch Court". US News. 2023-01-10. Archived from the original on 2023-05-18. Retrieved 2023-05-18.
  9. ↑ "'One of the world's cruelest migrant smugglers' arrested in Sudan". 2023-01-24. Archived from the original on 2024-03-17. Retrieved 2025-11-03.
  10. ↑ "Dutch Court Opens Trial of Eritrean Man Accused of Running Brutal Migrant Smuggling Network". ANN. 3 November 2025. Retrieved 18 August 2026.
  11. ↑ "Eritrean Migrant Smuggler Receives Maximum 20-Year Sentence from Dutch Court". ChronicleAI. 27 January 2026. Archived from the original on 15 February 2026. Retrieved 18 August 2026.