UNHCR says it has not requested probe into Cairo refugee deaths

Jan 3, 2005 (CAIRO) — The UNHCR said Tuesday it has not requested an inquiry into the deaths of more than two dozen Sudanese refugees after Egyptian police forcibly broke up a three-month protest outside the agency’s Cairo offices.

“We are not calling for an inquiry at this point in time,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Astrid van Genderen Stort told reporters.

She made the comment as demands intensified for an independent inquiry into the deaths, which came after thousands of riot police wielding batons and firing water cannon stormed a park in Cairo last week.

Egyptian judicial sources said on Saturday that they would launch a government-led inquiry.

The refugees and asylum-seekers had called a sit-in at the park in Cairo’s affluent Mohandiseen neighbourhood, aiming to draw attention to their cause.

A child died late Sunday, medical sources said, increasing the death toll to 28. The young boy had been in a coma since he was hospitalised after Friday’s violent clashes.

Relatives said that despite his condition, the boy had remained cuffed to a bed.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), local rights groups and opposition and independent MPs have all demanded a probe to determine the circumstances that led to the high number of fatalities.

“Given Egypt’s terrible record of police brutality,” HRW said in the wake of the incident, “an independent investigation is absolutely necessary to assess responsibility and punish those responsible.”

The UNHCR’s Stort stressed that the UNHCR asked the Egyptian government to intervene and clear the park only after numerous lengthy negotiations with protest leaders failed to convince them to call off the action.

“Nothing that we proposed was being listened to. The demonstrators on the square wanted something impossible,” Stort said.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has described the deaths as “a terrible tragedy that cannot be justified.”

The prominent Egyptian actor and UNHCR goodwill ambassador, Adel Imam, at the joint news conference with Stort, said the refugee agency had exhausted all avenues for a peaceful end to the protest.

“There was no result,” added Imam, who participated in some of the talks.

Still, a probe has to be conducted, he said. “There has to be an investigation,” Imam urged.

The interior ministry has defended the actions of its forces, accusing the Sudanese of aggression.

Egypt said Monday it had detained over 2,000 Sudanese following the raid on the park and that it would deport to Sudan those not registered with the UNHCR and without legal residence in the country.

Family members contacted by AFP complained that they had difficulty locating relatives still unaccounted for, as the Egyptian authorities had kept moving detainees from one location to another.

The authorities have also denied family members access to some of the military camps holding those detained and were still barring access to hospitals and morgues which remain heavily guarded, they said.

“We have asked for access to all the people (in detention centres),” said the UNHCR’s Stort, adding that officials had yet to approve the request.

The agency said it was already assisting some of those released, hundreds of who are camping at church compounds in the city as they have lost their apartments.

(AFP/ST)