To:
The United Nations Australia,
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),
Human Rights Watch,
Amnesty International,
and all international mechanisms concerned with the protection of refugees and human rights,
We, the Sudanese-Australian Advocacy Network (SAAN), write to you with grave concern regarding the treatment of Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers in the Arab Republic of Egypt.
What Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers are currently facing in Egypt can no longer be described as isolated incidents or individual excesses. The accumulated, consistent, and corroborated reports point to a systematic pattern of violations including arbitrary arrests, mass security sweeps, detention of children and school students, coercive financial extortion in exchange for release, and forced deportations carried out in degrading conditions.
Sudanese civilians crossed into Egypt fleeing a brutal and well-documented war. They did not seek privilege or advantage. They sought safety from indiscriminate violence, displacement, and death. Under international law, they are entitled to protection, dignity, and the full application of the principle of non-refoulement. Instead, many now find themselves criminalised, humiliated, and treated as expendable.
Particularly alarming are credible accounts indicating that:
- Refugees and asylum seekers, including minors and students, are detained during random security operations.
- Individuals holding, or awaiting, UNHCR documentation are nevertheless arrested and held.
- Release from detention is conditioned on the payment of large sums of money, amounting to systemic extortion.
- Sudanese nationals are forcibly returned to Sudan despite the ongoing armed conflict.
These practices constitute grave violations of international refugee law, human rights law, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
SAAN calls upon the United Nations and international human rights organisations to act decisively and without delay. www.saan.org.au info@saan.org.au Page 2 of 2
- Immediate engagement with Egyptian authorities to end arbitrary arrests and deportations.
- Independent monitoring of detention conditions.
- An unequivocal prohibition on the detention or removal of children.
- Full respect for the principle of non-refoulement.
- Independent investigations into financial extortion.
- A humane and lawful framework governing the status of Sudanese refugees in Egypt.
Silence is not neutrality. It is acquiescence. Sudanese refugees are survivors of war and deserve safety, dignity, and recognition of their humanity.
Respectfully,
Sudanese-Australian Advocacy Network (SAAN)
Australia