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Egypt massacres Sudanese demonstrators in Cairo
Egyptian authorities were accused yesterday of a "savage massacre" after an overnight raid to clear Sudanese demonstrators from a camp in Cairo left at least 20 dead and scores wounded.
The victims included children and the elderly. They were killed in the early hours of yesterday as thousands of police officers dragged away hundreds of migrants from the makeshift camp where they had lived since September.
The Egyptian interior ministry said the dead were killed in a stampede after failing to heed police orders and that 23 officers were wounded in clashes with the protesters.
But witnesses said there was no stampede and that police severely beat the Sudanese migrants as they were forced on to waiting buses.
The migrants had been camping outside offices of the United Nations on a main Cairo street.
"The savage way the security forces intervened led to a real human massacre," the South Centre, an independent Sudanese human rights monitoring group, said.
It said nearly 1,300 Sudanese men, women and children were forcibly taken to sites outside Cairo.
The migrants began their protest at the end of September after the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) refused to grant them official refugee status. While violence in Sudan's western Darfur region has left tens of thousands dead, a peace deal was signed to end the country's two-decade civil war almost a year ago. The UN in Cairo says the deal means that most of those at the ramshackle camp are economic migrants rather than genuine asylum seekers.
But the protesters say it is not safe for them to return to Sudan and demand to be designated refugees and resettled in a third country where they would have better conditions than in Egypt.
Shortly after midnight yesterday police surrounded the camp and alternated negotiations with blasts from water cannon. Some protesters knelt in prayer as they were doused. At around 5am the police used truncheons to remove those who would not go willingly. Witnesses said police beat protesters as they were carried away.
In Geneva, Antonio Guterres, the UNHCR chief, said he was "deeply shocked and saddened by the events".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/31/wegypt31.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/31/ixworld.html
The Egyptian interior ministry said the dead were killed in a stampede after failing to heed police orders and that 23 officers were wounded in clashes with the protesters.
But witnesses said there was no stampede and that police severely beat the Sudanese migrants as they were forced on to waiting buses.
The migrants had been camping outside offices of the United Nations on a main Cairo street.
"The savage way the security forces intervened led to a real human massacre," the South Centre, an independent Sudanese human rights monitoring group, said.
It said nearly 1,300 Sudanese men, women and children were forcibly taken to sites outside Cairo.
The migrants began their protest at the end of September after the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) refused to grant them official refugee status. While violence in Sudan's western Darfur region has left tens of thousands dead, a peace deal was signed to end the country's two-decade civil war almost a year ago. The UN in Cairo says the deal means that most of those at the ramshackle camp are economic migrants rather than genuine asylum seekers.
But the protesters say it is not safe for them to return to Sudan and demand to be designated refugees and resettled in a third country where they would have better conditions than in Egypt.
Shortly after midnight yesterday police surrounded the camp and alternated negotiations with blasts from water cannon. Some protesters knelt in prayer as they were doused. At around 5am the police used truncheons to remove those who would not go willingly. Witnesses said police beat protesters as they were carried away.
In Geneva, Antonio Guterres, the UNHCR chief, said he was "deeply shocked and saddened by the events".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/31/wegypt31.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/31/ixworld.html
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§where are the progressives?
It feels like the tragedy in Darfur is largely ignored by the progressives. Why? Is it because its Muslim on Muslim violence? There is a real human rights travesty going on here- 400,000 dead in a few years- and yet it seems the progressive community is largely silent. The situation in Darfur is as much about oil as Iraq- the Chinese are gleefully drilling for oil while innocents are slaughtered, and they are using their security council veto to prevent any oversight.
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