Egypt defers deportation of Sudanese refugees – UNHCR

Jan 5, 2006 (CAIRO) — Egypt has deferred the deportation of about 650 Sudanese migrants whom police violently evicted from a city park last week, the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees said Thursday.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Egyptian government.

UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid van Genderen Stort told The Associated Press that the Foreign Ministry had given the agency three days to assess the status of 654 migrants who have been earmarked for deportation.

Van Genderen Stort said they were informed of the decision late Wednesday and she and her colleagues were interviewing the migrants in police detention camps.

“We are trying to complete the process as soon as possible,” van Genderen Stort said. She said did not know what the Egyptian government would do at the end of the three-day period.

The Foreign Ministry press official could not be reached Thursday.

Egypt has said Tuesday that it would send the 654 migrants back to Sudan by ship Thursday.

The Sudanese were among the more than one thousand migrants who camped in a Cairo park for three months to protest what they saw as a failure by the UNHCR to help resettle them.

Last Friday, after negotiations and bursts of water cannon, police armed with clubs evicted the Sudanese. Security officials said 25 migrants died, including women and children. The Interior Ministry said 12 died, and blamed the violence of the squatters’ refusal to move.