Deported Eritreans face torture

2009-01-11 20:33

Aziz El-Kaissouni

Cairo - On Sunday Egypt deported 32 Eritreans who were caught in the country trying to enter Israel illegally, despite concerns that they could face torture at home, sources at Cairo International Airport said.

The sources said police had put the Eritreans on an EgyptAir aeroplane for Asmara. It was the second such deportation in less than a week, with another 32 deported on Wednesday.

Activists have said that Eritrean immigrants face the risk of torture if they returned home.

Many of them arriving in Egypt are Pentecostal Christians escaping religious persecution and others are trying to avoid military conscription, they said.

The Eritreans were caught on the Egyptian-Israeli border weeks ago while trying to slip across into the Jewish state.

Hundreds of African migrants have attempted the journey in recent years. This year alone Egyptian police have shot and killed 28 of them, and Egypt has deported up to 1 200.

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch said in December that Egypt must not deport Eritrean asylum seekers without giving the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) an opportunity to assess their claims.

It said that Egypt was holding dozens of Eritrean migrants in a detention centre in Sinai, and UNHCR had no access to them.

The London-based rights group Amnesty International said in Eritrea the asylum seekers would probably be held incommunicado in inhumane conditions for long periods of time.

Many African migrants, some of whom are killed by Egyptian police as they scale the border fence with Israel, seek work in the Jewish state.

Egypt for years tolerated tens of thousands of Africans on its territory, but its attitude hardened in 2007 after it came under pressure to stop growing numbers of Africans trying to cross into Israel.

- Reuters