Egypt will not expel Sudanese – presidency spokesperson

Jan 17, 2006 (CAIRO) — Egypt will allow Sudanese asylum-seekers it had threatened with expulsion to remain in the country to have their cases reviewed by the UN refugee agency, the Egyptian presidency spokesperson said.

“The UNHCR had refused for three months to re-examine the cases of Sudanese asylum-seekers whose requests had been rejected,” Suleiman Awad told reporters.

“Now that the UNHCR has changed its mind, we want to give the asylum seekers a chance to stay in Egypt and have their files reviewed,” he said, after a meeting between US Vice President Dick Cheney and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The UNCHR had said Monday that it needed more time to study the files of hundreds of Sudanese who had been detained by the Egyptian authorities and threatened with expulsion.

More than 400 Sudanese, including women and children, have been held since a protest outside the UNHCR offices in Cairo by hundreds of Sudanese refugees and asylum-seekers was brutally dispersed by Egyptian police on December 30.

Thousands of riot police wielding batons and water canon broke up a three-month sit-in in central Cairo, killing at least 28 people, including women and children.

“One hundred and ninety-one women and children remain in detention, while 73 others have been released,” UNCHR spokesperson Astrid van Genderen Stort said.

Sudanese families in Cairo say that several demonstrators are still unaccounted for and several rights groups have called for an investigation into last month’s violence.

(AFP/ST)