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12 Eritrean Asylum Seekers
Taken
To Cairo Airport for Forced
Repatriation
By
Nharnet Stringer (Europe)
Twelve Eritrean asylum seekers were seen
at Cairo Airport yesterday, 30 May 2007, in the company of Egyptian
police who were apparently preparing to forcefully resend them to
Eritrea.
Members of an Eritrean civil society
in Switzerland obtained the news from relatives of the stranded asylum
seekers in Cairo and started alerting, through electronic messages, the
offices of humanitarian agencies in Egypt, like the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees, to help stop the intended repatriation by Egypt of the
young Eritreans who will risk their lives if returned to the claws of
the cruel dictatorship in Asmara.
Unconfirmed reports indicated that
the 12 young Eritreans were apprehended by Egyptian security forces
somewhere in the Sinai desert while trying to cross to Israel. Earlier
reports claimed that up to 300 “illegal migrants” were kept at a camp in
Sinai following their arrest by border securities units. This is the
first time that Eritreans asylum seekers were arrested while trying to
go to Israel
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