Egyptian police disperse Sudanese refugees

Egyptian riot police arrest Sudanese refugees at El Mohandeseen square in Cairo early yesterday. At least 20 people were injured when police used force to fight hundreds of Sudanese. PHOTO: EPA

Thousands of Egyptian riot police forcefully evacuated hundreds of Sudanese refugees early yesterday, breaking up a three-month old protest outside UN offices in Cairo.

Several refugees were wounded when phalanxes of riot police armed with sticks and shields stormed the small square where the Sudanese had been camping at around 5:00am.

A witness saw several people being dragged away from the mayhem, as the refugees -- including dozens of women and small children -- tried to resist evacuation.

It was not immediately clear whether any of the protesters died in the violent evacuation nor was it possible to determine the nature of the injuries.

The refugees were forced into dozens of buses lined up on one of the main thoroughfares in Cairo's upmarket neighborhood of Mohandessin, ending a standoff that had lasted most of the night.

"They want to kill us," shouted one protester, as he was frog-marched towards a bus. "Our demands are legitimate, it is our right to protest here, the only right we have."

The police forces -- who numbered close to 5,000 in the neighborhood for the operation -- initially used water cannons in a bid to disperse the refugees.

The protesters had been sleeping under the Cairo sky for three months, fighting temperatures which have dipped well below 10oC lately with plastic sheets, cardboard and blankets.

A 21-year civil war in Sudan which ended a year ago had displaced some four million people, while an ongoing conflict in the western region of Darfur has also forced scores to flee the country.

The refugees are demanding that the UN agency review cases of asylum-seekers whose applications it rejected and resume resettling refugees in third countries, mainly the US, Canada and Australia.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has offered to provide more assistance to the refugees but has refused to resettle them in a third country.

But most of the Sudanese refugees explain they simply want to leave Egypt, where they say the UN office has ignored their plight.

"The trust is gone. We will be happy if we end up in any other country, but look how this Arab country is treating us, just because we are black. It's a disgrace," Paul, a young refugee from the southern Sudanese city of Juba, said just before being evacuated.

"They are telling us to go back because the war is over, but it's not so simple," said George Oliver, a 20-year-old from the same region.

"There are people here from all parts of the country who have had problems with the army. I was seized from the street in Khartoum and drafted by force in the military. Now I am here, if I go back to Sudan, they will find me," he said.