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Eritrean Asylum Seekers in Egypt and Libya
Under Unwarranted Threat of Forced Deportation
By
ELF-RC Office for Information and
Culture
27.01.2008
ELF-RC sources in Cairo just informed
that 252 Eritreans in different jails in Egypt are being told that they
will be sent back to Eritrea where they will imminently face torture and
risks to their lives, as happened to many forcedly returned asylum
seekers before them.
The sources in Cairo listed the
numbers and the locations of the detained Eritreans: 74 (52 males and 22
females) are detained at Qenatir; 130 males in Alexandria; 24 males in
Cairo (Bablkhel-Istinaf); and 24, including mothers and 4 babies, in
Ismailia.
It was also reported that a large
number of Eritrean asylum seekers in Libya are under the threat of
deportation alongside the million or so “migrants” in that country.
Human Rights Watch said that the Libya decision will, if implemented,
put to high risk asylum seekers coming from places like Eritrea
confirming that Eritreans have “a
legitimate claim for asylum” and protection from persecution and abuse
of human rights.
It is
estimated that there are no less than 600 Eritrean asylum seekers
stranded in Libya, most of them held at known detention camps.
“A mass deportation from Libya would put an untold number of people at
risk of serious harm,” said Bill Frelick, director of Human Rights
Watch’s Refugee Policy Program. “This sweeping policy, with no chance
for bona fide asylum seekers to get protection, violates the fundamental
principles of refugee law.” It is said that Libya has no law or
procedures in place for asylum seekers, but its constitutional law
prohibits the extradition of “political refugees.”
Newsmen stationed in the region reported that “of particular concern are
mass returns to Eritrea, where the government has detained and possibly
tortured returnees from Libya. In one case, in 2004, Eritreans being
forcibly returned from Libya hijacked their plane en route and forced it
to land in Sudan, where UNHCR recognized 60 of the deportees as
refugees.”
Mr
Frelick was further quoted to have said: “Europe is fixated on blocking
people from getting to its borders, without adequate regard for these
people’s protection needs.”
Under this circumstances, the ELF-RC, one of the leading political
opposition organizations struggling for change and democratization in
Eritrea appeals to Libyan and Egyptian authorities to reconsider this
decision which will put many Eritreans to high risk when forcedly
returned to the cruel dictatorial regime in Asmara.
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