Egyptian police clear Sudanese refugee protest camp in Cairo; at least 20 die BEN CURTIS
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Egyptian police turned water cannons on Sudanese war refugees and beat them with sticks Friday, seeking to end a three-month protest at the ramshackle squatters camp in a small city park. Officials said at least a dozen people were killed, but one of the protest leaders put the toll at more than double that.
Hundreds of Sudanese had been living in the park since September to protest the UN refugee agency's refusal to consider them for refugee status. They want to be resettled in a third country, such as the United States or Britain, rather than go home after a peace deal ended the 21-year-long civil war in Sudan.
In Geneva, Switzerland, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, AntDonio Guterres, expressed shock and sadness over the violence and deaths.
"Although we still do not have all of the details or a clear picture of what transpired, violence left several people dead and injured," Guterres said. "There is no justification for such violence and loss of life. This is a terrible tragedy and our condolences go to all the families of those who died and to the injured."
The Egyptian Interior Ministry said it had acted in part after the UNHCR asked for protection because it had received "threats to attack the commission offices and its members."
The Interior Ministry blamed the violence on the Sudanese and said the dead and injured were victims of a stampede.
AP reporters on the seen saw no stampede. The protesters could not flee because the camp was completely encircled by police, with water canons at each corner. However, some protesters could be seen fighting back with long sticks that appeared to be supports for makeshift tents.
Sudanese Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ali Ahmed Kerti, speaking to reporters in Cairo before returning home to Khartoum, joined Egyptian authorities in blaming the refugees, some of whom "sought to escalate the situation with no regard to the consequences," Egypt's MENA news agency reported.
In a showdown played out over five hours early Friday, the protesters dismantled their plastic sheeting and cardboard, but most refused to leave on buses brought in to take them to camps elsewhere in Cairo.
Shortly before dawn, thousands of riot police encircled the camp, set up near the refugee agency to draw attention to the refugees' demands. Police fired water cannons at the protesters, then invaded the park when the Sudanese refused to leave.
Although some protesters fought back, police also beat unarmed migrants and continued to hit them as they were being dragged to buses. One officer carried a girl of about three or four years of age who appeared to be unconscious. An ambulance worker later said the girl was dead.
An official Interior Ministry statement said 12 protesters died and 74 police were wounded, but other ministry officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media, put the number of dead at 20.
Boutros Deng, one of the protest leaders, told The Associated Press that 26 Sudanese had been killed: 17 men, two women and seven children.
Officials at the South Centre, an independent Sudanese human rights group, said 1,280 refugees were taken by bus to three locations outside Cairo. In a statement faxed to The AP in Cairo, the group described the police assault as "savage."
The refugee agency said last week that it had reached a deal with some of the protest leaders, promising to resume hearing some migrants' cases and offering a one-time payment of up to $700 US for housing in Egypt. But most of the migrants rejected the deal, saying they wanted promises of resettlement abroad.
The agency stopped hearing the cases of Sudanese seeking refugee status after a January peace deal ended the civil war in their home country.
"It is extremely sad that people had to die," said Astrid Van Genderen Stort, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Cairo.
At times the Sudanese numbered up to 2,000 in the camp, about the size of four tennis courts. At least three refugees had previously died in the camp, including a four-year-old boy who succumbed to pneumonia earlier this month.
About 30,000 Sudanese are registered as refugees in Egypt, and estimates of Sudanese living in the country have ranged from 200,000 to several million.
But Egypt, which suffers from high unemployment and strained social services for its own population of 72 million, offers the
