Red Sea slave trade

Common card · No. 293322

The Red Sea slave trade was a Muslim slave trade across the Red Sea trafficking Black Africans from Sub-Saharan Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East from antiquity until the mid-20th century. Conservative estimates of Black people traded as slaves in the Red Sea slave trade hover around 1.3 million while most sources estimate upwards of 2.5 million with the vast majority of the enslaved being women and girls. The Red Sea slave trade is one of the Arab slave trades and is one of the longest enduring slave trades in the world, as it is known to have existed from the 7th century until the 1960s, when slavery in Saudi Arabia and Yemen were abolished. The Red Sea, the Sahara, and the Indian Ocean were the three main routes by which East African slaves were transported to the Muslim world.

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