Egypt to deport 650 Sudanese migrants

Egypt will deport 654 Sudanese refugees who were violently evicted from a protest camp in a Cairo park last week, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said today.

Spokeswoman Fatma el-Zahraa Etman said the 654 would be flown home on Thursday because “they were either found to be illegal immigrants or refugees who had violated security conditions.”

The migrants were detained on Friday morning when squads of riot police evicted more than a thousand Sudanese migrants from a small park where they had camped for three months in protest against what they saw as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ failure to help resettle them.

After showering the squatters with water canon and negotiating with their leaders, the police stormed the park swinging truncheons.

The Interior Ministry said 12 protesters were killed, but security officials said 25 died and a protest leader put the toll at 26.

Some 74 policemen were wounded in the operation which was condemned by local and international human rights groups.

Earlier today, UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid Van Genderen Stort said the deaths were “very sad,” but nobody was to blame.

“We urged the police to deal with the situation in a peaceful manner,” Stort said.

The Egyptian government has blamed the migrants for refusing to move and said that the UNHCR had asked it to end the protest.

“We are not blaming anyone,” Stort said of the police operation. “It went as it went and it ended in a tragic way.

“It is very sad that so many people had to die and get injured from both sides,” Stort added. She said she no exact number for the death toll.

The Sudanese were taken to police detention camps. Stort said “hundreds” were staying in the camps, but had no precise figure.