Press Release

SHRO-Cairo Urges Humanitarian Support for Sudanese Displaced in Egypt

January 31, 03

The Sudan Human Rights Organization Cairo Branch expressed grave concerns for the arrests of many Sudanese displaced citizens in the Ma'adi and al-Basatin residential areas of Cairo. 200 persons were arrested and detained during the 28th and 29th of January, 2003. Most of the detainees were Sudanese citizens victims of the Sudan's Civil War who had been suffering the hardships of war and displacement before they arrived to Cairo where they still suffer many difficulties in residential permits and living conditions. The Organziation made urgent contacts with human rights organiations in Egypt and the United Nations Refugees' Office in Cairo, which urged Egyptian authorities to release the arrested persons including those recognized as refugees by the UN Office. The organizations continue the good effort to release the remaining 50 persons under arrest who for the most part did not have legal permits to stay in Egypt.

SHRO-Cairo is appreciative of the security obligations that require legal arrest or detention of the foreigners who fail to insure legal residence in the Egypt. SHRO-Cairo urges the Egyptian authorities to consider the humanitarian needs of these Sudanese citizens as victims of Civil War.The Organization is highly appreciative of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, the Arab Activists' Program, and the UN Refugees' Office in Cairo for the humanitarian support they have generously paid to the Sudanese in this difficult situation. The Organization refers to its previous collaboration with the UN Office that helped to insure protection of the Sudanese with refugee status as well as the others with pending cases. SHRO-Cairo hopes that the Egyptian authorities and the UN Office would extend protectional measures to all sections of the displaced Sudanese in Egypt including exemption of prolonged nvestigative procedure, arrest or detention.