UN says Egypt has given another week to Sudanese refugees
Jan 8, 2005 (CAIRO) — Egypt has given the U.N. refugee body another week to assess the status of about 650 Sudanese refugees whom police violently evicted from a city park last month, a UNHCR spokesperson said Sunday.
Egypt had planned to deport 654 Sudanese but on Wednesday gave the UNHCR 72 hours to interview the refugees in police detention camps.
Astrid van Genderen Stort told The Associated Press on Sunday that the UNHCR had spoken to everyone but needed more time. She said the government had given another week to complete the assessment.
“We do think that a lot of people in the detention centers are in need of international protection,” she said. “If we really want to do a proper determination or assessment for the status, we will really need more time.”
The detained Sudanese were among the more than 1,000 refugees who camped in a Cairo park for three months to protest what they saw as a failure by the UNHCR to help resettle them.
The refugees do not want to return to Sudan. But the UNHCR has ruled that many of them do not qualify for resettlement because the war in southern Sudan has ended.
In late December, Egyptian police armed with clubs violently evicted the Sudanese from the park. 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.
The government on Tuesday said it would deport the 654 Sudanese because “they were either found to be illegal immigrants or refugees who had violated security conditions.” Egyptian law bans sit-ins and demonstrations unless previously approved by the Interior Ministry.
But van Genderen Stort said deportation was too harsh a punishment.
“If any one breaks the law of refugees, he shouldn’t be departed, but may be judged,” she said.
Cabinet spokesman Magdy Rady, in a statement published in the early Monday edition of al-Gomhuria newspaper, said of the issue: “We welcome those who have legal visas and we will work to deport the others.”
Egypt has long offered Sudanese a haven from the various conflicts that have ravaged their country. About 30,000 Sudanese are registered as refugees in Egypt, and estimates of Sudanese living here have ranged from 200,000 to several million.
The government of Southern Sudan on Tuesday condemned Egypt’s treatment of the refugees and agreed to form a ministerial subcommittee to persuade Sudanese refugees in Egypt to return home. A 21-year civil war between north and south Sudan ended in January 2005.
(AP/ST)