UNHCR urges Egypt not to expel Sudanese refugees
Jan 4, 2005 (CAIRO) — The United Nations’ refugee agency said on Wednesday it asked Egypt not to deport 650 Sudanese people who the Egyptians claim are in their country illegally.
The 650 people are part of a wider group of up to 3,500 Sudanese demanding that the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) re-settle them in the West. The UNHCR has offered them asylum seeker status, but said it cannot re-settle them all.
“We still do not know officially. We have been trying to get in contact. We have sent an official note in which we appeal to the authorities not to deport anyone,” UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid van Genderen Stort said.
The UNHCR on Wednesday said it had received assurances from Egypt that Sudanese asylum seekers would not be deported to Sudan, but later government statements have contradicted these.
A Foreign Ministry official said the Sudanese would be repatriated by boat on Thursday, in coordination with the Sudanese embassy. Embassy officials had no immediate comment.
The deportations come after Egyptian police killed 27 Sudanese protesters while attempting to move 3,500 Sudanese protesters from a squalid demonstration camp near the U.N. offices in Cairo using sticks and water cannon.
“There might be people of concern to the UNHCR … There might be people who have lost their documents in the chaos,” Stort told Reuters.
Some protesters had been there for three months, demanding re-settlement in the West.
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Talks between Sudanese demonstrators in the camp and the office of the UNHCR to end the protest broke down on Dec. 22, after many protesters rejected a deal signed by their leaders.
The agreement included reviewing the status of the protestors, giving asylum seeker status to those not yet registered with the agency, and inviting applications for “one off” financial aid. Stort said the offer was still open.
The UNHCR gave cash grants to the Sudanese to pay for accommodation, she said.
Stort said the UNHCR had not called for an official enquiry into the deaths of the protesters. But she said the agency would welcome one.
Sudanese refugees say they face racism, unemployment and a lack of education and healthcare in Egypt since they fled violence in Sudan. The UNHCR says Sudanese in Egypt have access to state services, and it cannot move all refugees to the West.
Sudan’s north-south civil war lasted over two decades and made 4 million people homeless. A separate conflict in the Western Darfur region has produced a further 2 million refugees.
A peace agreement in January 2005 ended the north-south civil war but many Sudanese say it is not safe to return home as the deal is fragile.
The UNHCR says it has more than 20,000 Sudanese registered with the agency in Egypt. It puts the total number of Sudanese living in Egypt at up to three million.
(Reuters)