WFP donates food for Sudanese refugees in Egypt
Jan 23, 2006 (CAIRO) — The World Food Programme will donate food rations over at least three months for 4,000 Sudanese refugees in Egypt, the UN agency said Monday.
“It’s a symbolic gesture by the WFP to alleviate the pressure on the most vulnerable people,” WFP spokesman Khaled Mansour told AFP.
The 125,000-dollar donation amounts to 200 tonnes of food consisting mainly of wheat, flour, oil, sugar and lentils.
He said the programme would affect around 4,000 Sudanese refugees, including some of those who staged a three-month sit-in in central Cairo that was brutally dispersed by the Egyptian police last month.
Hundreds of Sudanese refugees and asylum-seekers had been protesting in front of a UN refugee agency office to demand their cases be reviewed. At least 27 people, including women and children, were killed when the police charged.
Hundreds were arrested and threatened with expulsion but the UNHCR obtained a reprieve from the Egyptian authorities to re-examine their status and fewer than 200 of them are still detained.
The UNCHR, which has urged Egypt not to deport anybody, said it was given until Thursday to complete its interviews but stressed it had obtained no guarantees on the fate of the Sudanese after the deadline expires.
(AFP/ST)