Winter beckons and homeless Sudanese camping in front of Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque, Mohandessin, remain steadfast to their month-long sit-in. What does the future hold for these activist asylum-seekers? Gamal Nkrumah investigates Sudanese refugees in Egypt, like displaced people the world over, have always walked a fine line between bravery and recklessness. In an unprecedented move, some are now camped in a park in the vicinity of the Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque in the suburb of Mohandessin, Giza. The park is close to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Cairo. The venue chosen for the sit-in is on one of the city's main thoroughfares. Not surprisingly, the spectacle of hundreds of Sudanese refugees camping out in the open has attracted much attention -- both media and public. "We will remain in this park until our demands are met. We are prepared to die," Amer, a leader of the Refugee Voices told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We will wait here, we will die here. We have no other place to go," another protester chipped in. Amer said that so far there has been seven deaths among the Sudanese camped at the park, including a toddler and an adolescent girl. "They died because of the wretched conditions," Amer explained. The Sudanese gathered in the park have been unsuccessful in their claim to asylum, on which the UNHCR has final authority. Most of the protesters are restrained, the impromptu camp orderly despite increasingly harsh conditions, though emotions occasionally flair. Medical supplies are allowed into the park and a Sudanese doctor, himself a refugee, visits regularly. As best as possible, a modicum of hygiene is adhered to. Calls of nature are answered care of the Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque, and concerned individuals and organisations regularly hand out food, blankets and clothing. Cairene nights, however, are now getting colder as temperatures drop to less than 10 Celsius degrees. Nonetheless, a group of some 2,000 people loiter about, refusing to leave the park. Some of the refugees have day jobs and the numbers swell on weekends when refugees who work come to the park in solidarity with those who have taken up full-time the self-imposed ordeal. On Sunday, some 800 protesters decided to go on a hunger strike to draw even more attention to their plight. Could this impetuous streak cost them their lives? They couldn't care less -- for them this is a matter of life and death anyway. Their protest is a survival strategy, even if it ultimately leads to death. The men congregate in a section of the park, and the women and children huddle together in another corner. Children cry and make much noise. Some are wrapped in duvets and colourful quilts. The women squat on blankets, straw woven mats and mattresses. Those on hunger strike are determined to fight for what they see as their basic human rights. "I will not eat until our demands are met," an angry young man told the Weekly. "We want justice." Behind these images lies a complex story of a people in search of a better world. Indeed, victims of Sudan's long wars, it seems, are much more interested in corrective international action than has often been suggested. The ringleaders of the Mohandessin sit-in are a group of five individuals who head the Refugee Voices, the group mobilising the Sudanese asylum- seekers. They worked out a list of grievances and they deliberately staged the sit-in on 29 September to coincide with the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan. The sit-in is a call to conscience. It is not, however, the first such protest action staged by Sudanese. In August 2004, an Egyptian non-governmental organisation, SOUTH, mobilised Sudanese refugees to protest against the issue of so- called "yellow cards" -- UNHCR-issued identity cards that indicate the bearers are asylum-seekers. Only a few are ever issued "blue cards" -- cards indicating that the bearer is a bona fide UNHCR- acknowledged refugee. Most of the Sudanese protesting in Mohandessin now are yellow card holders. So far, they enjoy friendly relations with the security men policing them. However, last year the response of Egyptian authorities was rather drastic and heavy- handed. Security officers and police rounded up the protesting refugees and tear gas was used to disperse the crowd of Sudanese asylum-seekers who demonstrated outside the UNHCR offices in Mohandessin. This year, some protesters have stated quite openly that because of rampant racism in Egypt they do not want to be integrated into Egyptian society. They bitterly complain of the hostility meted out to them on the streets of Cairo. "We are called names and children make faces at us. We want to be relocated to a country where there is no racism," said one of the protesters. "We want to go to a country where no one hurls racist remarks at us. We want to be given asylum in a country where people respect us." The protesters have no idea where that ideal country might be. Most, perhaps naïvely, believe that Americans, Australians and Canadians are less racist than Egyptians. They believe that a better life awaits them in the West, and that hosts there wound be more accommodating, sympathetic and helpful. It is probably ill advised for some of the Sudanese refugees in the park next to Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque to be muttering "no to local integration in Egypt," They may not like the deplorable conditions in Egypt, but these are the very conditions also endured by millions of Egyptians. Egypt, after all, is a developing country. "The response of the Egyptian authorities, and the Egyptian public at large, demonstrates how accommodating the country is -- or has become," Barbara Harrell-Bond, distinguished professor in forced migration studies at the American University in Cairo, told the Weekly. The response of Egyptian security forces and police to the Mohandessin sit-in has been remarkably restrained. Security officers policing the park where the Sudanese refugees are camped have been courteous and helpful. "We feel safe in the park," several refugees said. "In all my career, I've never seen a protest like this," explains Harrell-Bond, who has been working with refugees in Africa for well over three decades. "Discipline within the park is pretty incredible," she says. However, Harrell-Bond also pinpoints the real problem: "What the protest symbolises is the total breakdown of communications between the UNHCR and the refugees." "Who do we blame? We have to blame the donors," she told the Weekly. "The problem is that the UNHCR is short of funds." There is a dire need to redress the mistakes of the past and to sort out outstanding problems facing Sudanese refugees in Egypt. The tricky task for the UNHCR is to fulfil its humanitarian mission with the monies available to fund it. Blue card refugees are supported, at least to a minimal degree, monetarily and in terms of subsistence aid. The organisation, however, must economise and strike a balance between issuing too many blue cards and not jeopardising what remains of the hopes and aspirations of Sudanese asylum-seekers in Egypt. It doesn't look like the beleaguered UN body has got the balance right. Harrell-Bond, who visited refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda in June, said that even though conditions for Sudanese refugees in Egypt are far from ideal, they are relatively better than those endured by refugees in the two aforementioned East African countries. "I have been telling Sudanese refugees how lucky they are to be in Egypt, because the conditions suffered by their compatriots in East African countries are simply horrendous." Harrell-Bond said that one of the positive side effects of the Sudanese refugee sit-in in Mohandessin is that it highlights the plight of refugees. "It makes the Egyptian public more aware of the indignities suffered by refugees," Harrell-Bond said. She believes that the refugees, however, should take the opportunity to modify some of their behavioural patterns that sometimes offend Egyptians. "There is a terrible problem of alcohol and substance abuse in southern Sudan, for example. Part of the education must be undertaken by the refugees themselves; the spectacle of rowdy, drunken Sudanese men is objectionable in Egypt." She believes that some refugees must weigh better the consequences of their actions. Meanwhile, the question of the "closed files" has become something of a bone of contention between the refugees and the UNHCR. The term "closed files" refers to asylum-seekers whose cases, after interview, are rejected by the UNHCR, usually on suspicion that they are not genuine refugees but rather economic migrants. "People were interviewed when procedures were extremely faulty," Harrell-Bond explains. "Moreover, these interviews took place at a time when the UNHCR conveniently forgot that Egypt signed the OAU (Organisation of African Union) Refugee Convention," wherein, under Article 2, Sudanese asylum-seekers received prima facie recognition. Poor funding and mismanagement have left asylum-seekers little room to manoeuvre. "They are in limbo," Harrell-Bond explained. The refugees, however, seem to know exactly what they want, and are determined to get it. "We are victims of mismanagement," read one of the refugees' banners this week in Mohandessin. "Attention please: Who will restore our rights?" read another. The Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the Office of the Equal Opportunities and Affirmative Action (EOAA) and the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Programme (FMRS) of AUC has helped the refugees with legal aid and taught many how to fill in application forms for the UNHCR. Not all the protest slogans are sympathetic. Some might not appeal to, and even offend, local sensibilities. "We reject local integration," read one banner. "I have been telling them not to do it," Harrell-Bond revealed. She believes that even though the sit-in reflects the culmination of years of discrimination, neglect and abuse of human rights, it also provides an opportunity for the refugees to air their grievances and review their own priorities and aspirations. The most important demand of the refugees is protection from forced repatriation. Even though the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed on 9 January between the Sudanese government and the then southern Sudanese-based armed opposition's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), many southern Sudanese are reluctant to return to their homeland. The southern Sudanese economy is in shambles. There are few badly maintained dirt tracks in the South and virtually no tarred roads. Infrastructure, transport and communication are practically non-existent. Educational and healthcare facilities are scant, with entire provinces bereft of schools, hospitals or clinics. Armed groups roam the land wreaking wanton destruction and spreading fear among the civilian population. The SPLA is integrated into the interim Sudanese government of national unity, but peace and security are far from universal in southern Sudan. Additionally, bilateral relations between Egypt and Sudan have improved tremendously. Moving from Sudan to Egypt is no longer a suspect, illegal affair. Nonetheless, Egypt revoked many of the basic privileges enjoyed by Sudanese nationals residing in Egypt in the past, such as free education and healthcare. Further, Egyptians have lived with Sudanese immigration long enough to have formed comfortable, if stereotypical, views of Sudanese as "lazy", "drunken" and "insolent". Many Egyptians are uncomfortable with the presence of so many Sudanese in their midst. The Sudanese, however, risk detention and deportation for bad behaviour. They cannot risk forced repatriation to a country where they may face persecution and in some cases death. And by definition, asylum-seekers eschew any relation to the Sudanese Embassy in Cairo. There have been claims among the refugees that the Sudanese Embassy smuggled in agent provocateurs to disrupt their peaceful protest. Amer told the Weekly that a Sudanese Embassy vehicle smuggled in alcoholic drinks and a number of drunken young men bent on breaking the law. "We have the Sudanese Embassy vehicle plate as proof," he explained. "We are not able to reach each and every asylum- seeker," Dessalegne Damtew, deputy representative of UNHCR in Cairo, told the Weekly. "We help them find affordable accommodation, education, healthcare and welfare. We have resettled some 17,000 Sudanese over the past 6-7 years," he added. "However, there are no interviews now for refugee status determination among the Sudanese, and they all aspire for the blue card as it provides 'blanket protection'. But many of their demands are beyond the UNHCR mandate. For those psychologically scarred because of the war and rape victims we try to find a country where counselling facilities are readily available," Damtew said. His colleagues reiterated his views. "Most of the demands of the Sudanese demonstrators are beyond the UNHCR's control," Leila Nassif, senior regional external relations officer at the UNHCR's office in Cairo told the Weekly. She stressed that the "four freedoms" legislation enacted in 2004, entitled Sudanese and Egyptian nationals to enter their respective countries without a visa, own property and have work and residency permits. There are about 20,000 unsuccessful asylum- seekers believed to be in Egypt illegally. Often treated as wretches, or worse, unwelcome scroungers, asylum-seekers have had enough. Whether that alone will change anything is another question. "There are, obviously, some issues within the UNHCR's ability to influence," stressed Nassif, "but this can only be achieved through consultation and constructive dialogue, not by means of intimidation and the threat of violence." According to the Sudanese Development Initiative Abroad (SUDIA), a non-governmental organisation that assists refugees, displaced people and vulnerable groups from Sudan and other Horn of Africa countries, this is a very sad, and critical, period in the lives of Sudanese refugees in Egypt. "They are at the crossroads," Maha Bakri told the Weekly.
