- Title: EGYPT: Sudanese refugees hope Qatar agreement will allow them to return home
- Date: 25th February 2009
- Summary: MAN CARRYING FOOD DONATIONS TO SUDANESE REFUGEE CHILDREN IN DAYCARE CENTRE MEN CARRYING FOOD DONATIONS INTO DAY CENTRE VARIOUS OF CHILDREN IN DAYCARE CENTRE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) MOHAMMED BASHIR ALI, HEAD OF THE "ASSOCIATION FOR THE LAND OF THE KIND PEOPLE", SAYING: "I want to say that all of the treaties that have been concluded the Nefasha agreement, for example was concluded but the war still going on, and also there have been some incidents of sabotage. That's number one. Then there was that other agreement, the Darfur agreement with Arcua Minawi, he sometimes participates and then pulls out. So that is why we observe all of these matters very closely. We follow up on all of these matters through watching television or through our relatives in Sudan. We are eager to return home, and we just hope that these agreements will facilitate that for us. The latest Qatar agreement, they say it is still a first step." VARIOUS OF CHILDREN PLAYING
- Embargoed: 12th March 2009 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Egypt
- Country: Egypt
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVABLAIHHN7SDQW9WSZTNIY8FQMJ
- Story Text: Sudanese refugees in Egypt have faint hope that peace talks in Qatar will improve their chances of returning home.
For the thousands of Sudanese refugees living in the ramshackle red brick apartment buildings in the Arba-wa-Nus (Four and a Half) slum in eastern Cairo, recent peace talks in Qatar to end the war that turned them into refugees hold out only the faintest of hopes.
Many of their children, like the ones in a small daycare centre started by a local Sudanese charity in the slum, have been born into exile and have little prospects of escaping the poverty and other hardships they face in Egypt.
For most Sudanese refugees in Egypt, racism, unemployment and hostility from the Egyptian authorities are daily realities that force some to try and emigrate further afield, to Europe or Israel, or to take their chances by returning to war torn Darfur or southern Sudan.
And while the Khartoum government and the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement recently agreed in Qatar to take confidence-building measures and negotiate a "framework agreement" for peace talks, many refugees are sceptical, having seen other agreements come and go.
A 2006 peace deal between the government and one rebel faction failed to end the violence in Darfur, which the United Nations says has killed over 300,000 people.
Mohammed Bashir Ali heads the "Association for the Land of the Kind People", which provides daycare and other services to Sudanese families.
He says time will tell if the Qatar agreement will have a positive impact.
"I want to say that all of the treaties that have been concluded the Nefasha agreement, for example was concluded but the war still going on, and also there have been some incidents of sabotage. That's number one. Then there was that other agreement, the Darfur agreement with Arcua Minawi, he sometimes participates and then pulls out. So that is why we observe all of these matters very closely. We follow up on all of these matters through watching television or through our relatives in Sudan. We are eager to return home, and we just hope that these agreements will facilitate that for us. The latest Qatar agreement, they say it is still a first step," he said.
Zeinab Ali, who also works at the centre, says that talk of reconciliation is in stark contrast to the reports they get of continuing violence in Sudan.
"Yes, indeed that is what has happened. When I go on the Internet or turn on the satellite TV, I hear the government saying one thing, and the people in whose territory the war is raging say something different. In Darfur, for example, we are being raped and people are dying. One day I might hear there are negotiations going on, and the next, I'll hear that an area has been burned down, children have been killed or kidnapped, women have been raped, and so on. I am honestly unable to determine where the truth lies: with the people who are worn down or with the government," she said.
While official Egyptian sources say there are tens of thousands of African refugees in Egypt, refugee groups and some NGOs say the number is in the hundreds of thousands.
Whatever the exact figures, Sudanese make up the largest proportion of a refugee population that also includes exiles from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.
Many of them have not been awarded official refugee status by the UN or residence by the Egyptian government and therefore receive no benefits or legal protection.
Their plight gained some publicity after Egyptian police killed 27 Sudanese refugees who were encamped in a square near the UNHCR offices in Cairo to protest their living conditions on December 31, 2005.
In addition to facing widespread racism in Egypt, the refugees have also been stigmatised by the phenomenon of violence by Sudanese street gangs in Egypt, which has received a great deal of attention in the Egyptian and international press.
At the headquarters of CARITAS, a charity that provides a social net for asylum seekers, refugee Bonju Khalifa Kaf said that only a coordinated international effort could end their plight.
"The latest agreement, I wouldn't call is an agreement, it is more of a declaration of intent, an initiative by our Qatari brothers to contribute of solving the Darfur problem, and it is a big problem, bigger in my opinion than Qatar alone to handel. The problem of Darfur is a problem of the annihilation of a people. It requires the urgent collaboration of all the Arabs and the international community to remedy this matter. From another perspective, the brothers in the movements should get together because there is strength in unity," he said.
The UNHCR in Cairo has set up a voluntary repatriation programme, and the organisation says that it has already successfully repatriated several thousand refugees.
But with reports of the horror of war continuing to echo in the narrow alleys of Arba-Wa-Nus, the hardship of life in exile is for many still preferable to a return to the uncertainties that await in Sudan. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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