Sudan evicts Ethiopian asylum seekers to their country

March 1, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — The Ethiopian asylum seekers holed up and seeking protection at the offices of he United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Khartoum have finally been driven away by the police on Tuesday 27 February.

According to the Juba Post, the UNHCR requested the Sudanese police to remove the asylum seekers from the compound where they have been since December last year. The asylum seekers do not possess any legal documents to justify their refugee status; so they have to be taken back to their country of origin, police explained.

Police staff sergeant says “the action of removing the Ethiopian asylum seekers is a security measure which will ultimately result in sending them back to Ethiopia”. He added that the asylum seekers will be taken back home through Gadarif.

The public information officer of the UNHCR, Annette Rehrl, told the Juba Post on Wednesday that the police came on their own initiative and carted the asylum seekers away without any use of force around 11 O’clock on Tuesday night.

“Our protection staff went to the near-by police station to follow up on some individual cases that deserve attention”.

According to Musa one of the asylum seekers stated that “if they take us back to Ethiopia we will all be killed as it was political persecution that forced us to flee our country in the first place. We came to UNHCR for protection, because we believe they can protect us.”

He added that among the asylum seekers is a mother of two and is pregnant by 8 months.

The asylum seekers have been holed up in the UNHCR for three months and 20 days. He concluded that there must be a law to protect the pregnant women and small children not to allow them to be in prison.

“Our lives are really in danger if we are taken back home.”

(Juba Post)