CAIRO: Some 1,500 Sudanese asylum seekers have abandoned a more than two-monthlong sit-in outside U.N. offices in Cairo after the agency agreed to review their asylum claims, the body s refugee arm said on Sunday.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said concern for the protestors,who had endured winter temperatures camping in the open air amongst piles of rubbish, had prompted moves towards meeting their demands for greater assistance.
The protestors said some of their number had died from conditions in the camp, located on a patch of grass outside UNHCR offices in El-Mohandiseen. Some of the demonstrators had started a hunger strike in mid-November.
“Considering the best interest of persons of concern to UNHCR and mindful of the hardship that the sit-in is causing to many of them we are offering them a variety of solutions appropriate to each individual case, UNHCR said in a statement.
The protest started after the world body stopped interviewing all Sudanese entering neighboring Egypt earlier this year to determine if they are bona fide refugees. Refugee status is a key requirement for many asylum seekers wanting be resettled to the West.
The freeze on interviews followed the January peace deal ended Sudan s two-decade long southern civil war. Sudanese men, women and children have been protesting the freeze since Sept. 29 in a crowded park opposite the andmark Mustafa Mahmoud mosque in western Cairo, nearby the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
About 30,000 Sudanese are registered as refugees in Egypt, but estimates of Sudanese living in this country have ranged from 200,000 to several million.
In a deal signed by the protest leaders on Saturday, UNHCR concessions included reviewing the status of the protestors, giving asylum seeker status to those not yet registered with the agency, and inviting applications for “one off financial aid.
The leaders of the demonstration were not immediately available for comment. But the protesters remained in the park Monday, with many saying they did not agree to the deal and demanding the UNHCR help them resettle in another country.
“I want them to send me to another country, said Sudanese asylum-seeker Wilson Obuna. “If they don t, I am not leaving this park. I am living here and I am going to die here. Agencies
