South Sudan, UN to cooperate on return of refugees from Egypt
By Roba Gibia
September 23, 2007 (CAIRO) — UN refugees body and southern Sudan government mission in Egypt have agreed to cooperate over the voluntary return of Sudanese refugees in the country.
In a meeting held on 20 September in the premises of Southern Sudan mission in Cairo, Saad Al Attar, UNHCR Regional Representative and Parmena Makuet, Head of GoSS Mission in Cairo agreed to form a joint committee to oversee the voluntary repatriation of Sudanese refugees in Egypt.
During the meeting Parmena Makuet pointed out that Sudanese refugees are facing a lot of problems and that his office is receiving hundreds of them on daily bases. For instance there are 1000 people registered and ready to return tomorrow but there are no means, he added.
He also suggested that there should be cooperation between Egypt Liaison Office and UNHCR to organize the voluntary repatriation program to avert those who are messing around with refugees interests.
UNHCR began voluntary repatriation program since March 2006 with 800 people and all received same treatment. The procedures were to help them to travel from Cairo to Khartoum. But the procedure was stopped due to the lack of money.
The two sides discussed the issue of young Sudanese gangs causing chaos among Sudanese community and Parmena expressed his concern that this might cause confrontation between Sudanese and Egyptians, and said that the only solution is to deport those gangs back to Sudan.
But the UNHCR representative refused the forceful repatriation of refugees and elaborated that the hosting country may be accused of falsely deportation and imprisonment, and said that no one is above the law so anyone who commits crime has to face the justice.
After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005, the UNHCR stopped resettlement of southern Sudanese in Europe and North America. This shift of policy sparked a mass protest mass protests in December in which more than 30 Sudanese were killed. Also it dashed hopes for many in the refugee community.
Many young people dealt with the situation by joining gangs. The gang membership now estimated in the hundreds. Also, community leaders and experts say about five Sudanese have died gang-related deaths in the past year but there is no official record.
As the UNHCR is responsible for assessing applications for asylum, and providing refugee documentation, it issued two documents to asylum seeker yellow cards that indicate the bearer is an asylum-seeker, and blue cards indicating that the bearer is a UNHCR-acknowledged refugee.
In June 2004, UNHCR suspended the issuing of blue cards. Both blue and yellow cards provide services to refugees in terms of residence permit, education and healthcare.
The Four Freedoms Agreement signed in January 2004 between the governments of the two countries offer opportunity to Sudanese to be treated like Egyptians. The agreement grants both Sudanese and Egyptians the freedom of movement, residence, ownership and work in either country.
In 2004 the number of refugees was 42,000 in Egypt, 32,000 were Sudanese and 10,000 were from other nationalities.
(ST)