Frustrated Sudanese asylum seekers rioted last week in front of the UNHCR offices in Cairo. Gamal Nkrumah sounds them out Last Wednesday, some 500 Sudanese asylum seekers angrily demonstrated in front of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) offices in Cairo's Mohandessin district. They had prepared a list of demands that they intended to present to UNHCR officials; when they were not permitted into the UNHCR premises, the frustrated Sudanese asylum seekers could not contain their anger and matters got out of hand. A fracas broke out when police forces -- which had cordoned off the area -- demanded that a delegation of only five asylum seekers take their grievances to the UNHCR officials barricaded in the building. The asylum seekers promptly refused to heed police directives. At this point the police intervened to forcibly disperse the protesters. "We did not plan to make trouble. We just wanted to stage a peaceful march, but some of the protesters started to incite others to violence and things soon got out of control," explained Tajuddin Sorrein, a Sudanese asylum seeker from Darfur. The authorities responded to the rioting with tear-gas. An unspecified number of protesters were rounded up in police vehicles and taken into custody. Some of the detained Sudanese asylum seekers were taken to State Security headquarters for questioning. By the time Al-Ahram Weekly went to press, some 30 of the Sudanese asylum seekers who demonstrated at the UNHCR offices were still in detention. The asylum seekers' main grievance was that the UNHCR had temporary suspended its investigations into determining their refugee status. Other than especially desperate cases such as refugee children who are in Egypt unaccompanied by adults, all cases were put on hold. The asylum seekers also said that the UNHCR had limited its assistance programmes to all except families with more than six children. Asylum seekers from the war-ravaged region of Darfur were especially incensed because they felt that they had the right to seek asylum because of the calamitous security situation and humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur. They felt that the UNHCR should at least consider their request to officially become refugees. "Technically, there are three categories of refugees," explained Perveen Ali, programme director of the Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA) Legal Aid Project in Cairo. "First, those who actually have UN blue cards and have therefore successfully secured refugee status and receive UNHCR assistance. Second, those who are not officially recognised as refugees, but their claims are being investigated by UNHCR officials. And, last, the so-called closed files of those asylum seekers whose applications and appeals have been rejected or denied." Ali said that the Sudanese asylum seekers face serious social and economic problems in Egypt. Under current Egyptian law, Sudanese asylum seekers are forbidden to work, and are not entitled to medical care and education. But that dynamic might soon change. The Egyptian and Sudanese governments recently signed an agreement guaranteeing the freedom of movement, residence, work and property ownership between the two countries. The so-called "four freedoms agreement" was signed during a summit between President Hosni Mubarak and his Sudanese counterpart Omar Hassan El-Beshir in Cairo in January 2004. According to the agreement, Sudanese nationals would be entitled to own property in Egypt, as well as rightfully work and reside here. Egyptian nationals would also enjoy the same rights in Sudan. Although the People's Assembly is scheduled to ratify the agreement when it resumes its session in the fall, it remains unclear -- once the agreement is promulgated into law -- whether it will also require an implementation mechanism. "The four freedoms agreement is a process, and its implementation might take months, even years," Farouk Abu-Eissa, former Sudanese foreign minister and former head of the Cairo-based Arab Lawyers Union, told the Weekly. Abu-Eissa, who is currently the official spokesman for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the main umbrella Sudanese opposition organisation grouping northern and southern Sudanese opposition parties, said that the conditions under which most Sudanese asylum seekers in Egypt are living are deplorable. "Unemployment rates are very high in Egypt, and most Egyptians are poor and do not want Sudanese competition for limited job opportunities. Survival is a very difficult game for the Sudanese asylum seekers in Egypt." In fact, the Sudanese asylum seekers walk a constant tightrope. They do not want to return to Sudan because of political and economic considerations, but they also do not want to remain indefinitely in Egypt. Most thus desperately seek resettlement in a third, preferably Western, country. Abu-Eissa said the UNHCR's decision to temporarily suspend all refugee status investigations took place soon after last December's Naivasha Agreement between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the country's most powerful armed opposition group largely, but not exclusively, concentrated in its power-base in southern Sudan. "The UNHCR jumped to the wrong conclusions, believing that there were no longer valid reasons for the Sudanese asylum seekers to wish to flee Sudan." He also warned that the signing of Sudanese peace accords does not necessarily mean that security and prosperity will prevail in Sudan. "It will take years for life to return to normal," he said. What are the Sudanese asylum seekers then to do in the meantime? "Bureaucracy and red tape could mean that the implementation of the four freedoms agreement could take months, even years, to come into full effect." When and if the agreement is implemented on the ground, Sudanese nationals would be able to live in Egypt indefinitely; they would no longer need to have refugee status. Many in the Sudanese refugee community said they had noticed a somewhat more lenient approach by Egyptian police and government officials in the lead up to the agreement's implementation. Some are looking forward to the day when Sudanese nationals will also find the Egyptian passport control authorities much easier to deal with. However, even under the agreement, Sudanese nationals would still be unable to benefit from social security. The four freedoms agreement also doesn't entitle Sudanese nationals in Egypt to benefit from health and education assistance. "We still depend on the churches for the education of our children, and for training, clothing, medical and relief assistance," said Rosemary Akol, a southern Sudanese asylum seeker who works at the African Hope School, affiliated to the Maadi Community Church. There is no denying, however, that the asylum seekers' prospects have changed overnight. Ironically, both the four freedoms agreement and the Naivasha peace accords -- meant to ease the lives of Sudanese in exile -- have ended up generating considerable uncertainty among Sudanese asylum seekers in Egypt. By appearing to resolve issues related to the refugees' legal status and daily welfare in Egypt, the avenues by which Sudanese nationals attempt to seek asylum -- via Egypt -- in a third country are rapidly dwindling. The dreams of many of those who had entered the country hoping to eventually find a way to move to greener pastures in the West have been unceremoniously dashed. While the UNHCR continues to provide provisional protection for Sudanese refugees, it no longer interviews asylum seekers to determine whether they are eligible for refugee status. The chances of resettlement in the West for Sudanese asylum seekers have become very slim. In an ironic twist, the asylum seekers' worst nightmare has come true. They are no longer evaluated for resettlement in third countries. The major goal of the refugees has long been to be resettled in Australia, Canada or the United States. "If someone has refugee status, they can apply for resettlement," Maria Deng, a Sudanese asylum seeker, told the Weekly. "Now we are either stuck here in Egypt or we go back to war-torn Sudan." Abu-Eissa, on the other hand, claimed to speak for the majority of Sudanese people when he said, "many of us consider Egypt to be our second home. We have cultural and historical ties that bind us to Egypt." He stressed that even though he cannot condone violent protest, especially since Egypt, the host country, has been gracious to receive the Sudanese in the first place, he also sympathised with the predicament of the Sudanese asylum seekers. Abu-Eissa explained that confusion, frustration and uncertainty about the future led to the incident at the UNHCR last Wednesday. "We are working closely with the Egyptian authorities to secure the release of the remaining detainees," Abu-Eissa said.
