South African police rescue 44 Ethiopian people from suspected smugglers

Johannesburg: South African police said on Thursday that they had rescued 44 Ethiopian citizens, 17 minors, who were being held against their wishes in a Upskale neighborhood in Johannesburg.
The incident is the latest in a string of human-trafficking cases in Africa’s most industrial nation, a magnet for migrants unspecified from the entire continent.
Spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Mawla Masso told reporters that the officials were alerted to search for patrolling from the screams coming from the house in Sandon.
“We found that there were 44 illegal migrants who were locked in rooms,” he told Newsroom Africa Television. Seventeen of them were minors, he said.
“We are still waiting for an interpreter that will help us get more information from them,” said Masondo. In March, dozens of young Ethiopian adults and children who were allegedly taken captive in a suburban house in Johannesburg ran away, police found 32.
It was not immediately clear that both cases were connected. In January, the police found 26 unspecified Ethiopians naked and were organized by suspected smugglers without documents in Johannesburg. Last August, more than 80 was discovered in a house under inhuman conditions in another suburb of the city.