Eritrean's Hostage in Egypt

The article I'm blogging about I found on BBCNews. The article says that about 250 African Migrants are being held hostage by people smugglers in Egypt. According to the article, many of the group were from Eritrea and were kidnapped when illegally crossing the Israel border. It is reported that some of the hostages have been held for 6 or more months in shipping containers in the desert because their ransoms aren't being paid. They say that this people smuggling and kidnapping happens quite often and Israel is even trying to build a border in the desert to try to deter it from happening. The ransoms have gone up. What started as wanting $2,000 has now gone to between $8,000 and $15,000. The article says that there are efforts underway to get the hostages back safe.

This article caught my attention because it was talking about hostages and people-smuggling. While I'm not entirely sure what that involves, it didn't sound good. To me, the ransoms seem ridiculous to ask of people and their loved one who were illegally crossing borders. What I infer from that is that they don't have much money, that's what happens in the United States, Mexicans cross our borders in search of money and jobs so I'm assuming that's what these African migrants were doing as well. It's also just really...wrong? That people kidnap each other for money and smuggle them for money as well. I try not to think that Africa is a bad place, but sometimes these articles make that hard.