In addition to Palestinians, who are estimated to number some 50,000, Egypt is a host to refugees from some thirty-five other nationalities. The largest number of people seeking asylum from Africa are from Sudan (some 60%), but refugees also arrive from Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Somalia. Refugee applicants in Egypt also include people from Afghanistan, Albania, China, Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Ukraine - in addition to those who seek asylum from Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen.
quote:Originally posted by mac0623: they are like ants ,everywhere
Toulo Toul ennakhleh wo 3aqloh 3aql essakhle
Were you drunk when you made that comment, or are you just an arrogant a$$hole all the time?
Posts: 3291 | From: I DO believe in Karma! | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
There are about 20 000 Sudanese refugees in Cairo (60% of all), followed close by Somali and way down in 3rd place, Ethiopians.
The top five refugee-hosting countries are Pakistan: 1,085,000 (UNHCR estimate); Iran: 716,000; Germany: 700,000; Tanzania: 549,000; and United States: 380,000 (UNHCR estimate).
The total number of refugees worldwide is 8.5 million (excluding Palestinians).
The number of refugees and asylum seekers in Egypt is insignificant compared to the rest of the wprld
So whats your point?
-------------------- "Whashing One's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral" -Freire- Posts: 370 | From: Montreal, Canada + World expat | Registered: Apr 2004
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Who knows Annie, maybe she is taking an online Journalism course, but doesn't realize she is suppose to write her own stories, not flood a forum with copy and pastes from others?
Posts: 3291 | From: I DO believe in Karma! | Registered: Apr 2002
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Who knows Annie, maybe she is taking an online Journalism course, but doesn't realize she is suppose to write her own stories, not flood a forum with copy and pastes from others?
you might have a point there Laura Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by annie_81: There are about 20 000 Sudanese refugees in Cairo (60% of all), followed close by Somali and way down in 3rd place, Ethiopians.
The top five refugee-hosting countries are Pakistan: 1,085,000 (UNHCR estimate); Iran: 716,000; Germany: 700,000; Tanzania: 549,000; and United States: 380,000 (UNHCR estimate).
The total number of refugees worldwide is 8.5 million (excluding Palestinians).
The number of refugees and asylum seekers in Egypt is insignificant compared to the rest of the wprld
So whats your point?
" It is not possible to provide a good 'guesstimate' of how many refugees there are in Egypt. Why? The Sudanese, for example, defy any attempt to provide accurate numbers. In 2000, the World Council of Churches reported that 'between two and five million Sudanese have come to Egypt in recent years an more are arriving each week."
"There are tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees in Egypt, most of them seeking refuge from ongoing military conflicts in their home country of Sudan. Their official status as refugees is highly disputed, and they have been subject to racial discrimination and police violence. They live among a much larger population of Sudanese migrants in Egypt, more than two million people of Sudanese nationality (by most estimates; a full range is 750,000 to 4 million (FMRS 2006:5) who live in Egypt. The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants believes many more of these migrants are in fact refugees, but see little benefit in seeking recognition ."
Annie, I don't mean to make a point here (anyway why you are being so harsh, talk back with EOHR if you don't like the their published facts and the same goes for the Foreign Ministry's statement).
And yes these immigrants numbers - whether they are more or less - are significant and mean a hardship for a third-world country like Egypt to take care of.
When are you leaving Egypt? It should be soon. Take care.
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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Who knows Annie, maybe she is taking an online Journalism course, but doesn't realize she is suppose to write her own stories, not flood a forum with copy and pastes from others?
Oh, Laura, why don't you go back to your kitchen corner 'cause that's where you belong..... oh and watch the trans fats! Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
posted 09 February, 2007 04:52 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by mac0623: they are like ants ,everywhere --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Toulo Toul ennakhleh wo 3aqloh 3aql essakhle
Were you drunk when you made that comment, or are you just an arrogant a$$hole all the
NO JUST AN EXPREESES VIEW FROM THE WEST AND A VALID ONE AT THAT AS OUR CRIME RATE IS SOARING AND THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE CLAIMING AND DEMANDING BENEFITS FROM MY COUNTRY IS GOING THROUGH THE ROOF, IAM ALL FOR THE FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT BUT NOT FOR THE FREEDOM OF LETS GET IN TO THIS COUNTRY AND LIVE OFF THE STATE AND DEMAND EVERTHING POSSIBLE,IAM FED UP TO THE BACK TEETH OF PEOPLE CALLING THE WEST THEN COME HERE AND TRYING TO CHANGE IT AND THEN MARCHING ON THE STREETS DEMANDING THIER RIGHTS. THE TROUBLE IS THE MANY WILL ALWAYS SPOIL IT FOR THE FEW WHO DO NEED HELP, SO DONT BE CLEVER WITH YOUR REMARKS STATE A VALID POINT ,NOT A STUPID REMARK
Posts: 1344 | From: uk/ | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
I you are taling about immigrants, there is no way to provide a good estimate.
However, if you are talking about refugees, a completely different class of migrants, its fairly easy to provide accurate numbers because they must be recognised by the UN in order to qualify as refugees.
no UN card=immigrant.
furthermore, it is false to say that there are few incentives for refugees to register with the UN. One of the main advantages that refugees have over migrants is : Resettlement. well, a slim chance at it. Also, free medical care and free schooling. Those are the main reasons why people register with UNHCR in Cairo. It is false to say that they see little incentives to register and therefore cannot be counted!
(unless you are talking about immigrnats but your post was about refugees)
-------------------- "Whashing One's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral" -Freire- Posts: 370 | From: Montreal, Canada + World expat | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by mac0623: posted 09 February, 2007 04:52 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by mac0623: they are like ants ,everywhere --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Toulo Toul ennakhleh wo 3aqloh 3aql essakhle
Were you drunk when you made that comment, or are you just an arrogant a$$hole all the
NO JUST AN EXPREESES VIEW FROM THE WEST AND A VALID ONE AT THAT AS OUR CRIME RATE IS SOARING AND THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE CLAIMING AND DEMANDING BENEFITS FROM MY COUNTRY IS GOING THROUGH THE ROOF, IAM ALL FOR THE FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT BUT NOT FOR THE FREEDOM OF LETS GET IN TO THIS COUNTRY AND LIVE OFF THE STATE AND DEMAND EVERTHING POSSIBLE,IAM FED UP TO THE BACK TEETH OF PEOPLE CALLING THE WEST THEN COME HERE AND TRYING TO CHANGE IT AND THEN MARCHING ON THE STREETS DEMANDING THIER RIGHTS. THE TROUBLE IS THE MANY WILL ALWAYS SPOIL IT FOR THE FEW WHO DO NEED HELP, SO DONT BE CLEVER WITH YOUR REMARKS STATE A VALID POINT ,NOT A STUPID REMARK
To Arrog*ant* I now can add Ignor*ant*.
and Tiger$illy,(you're not worth another post) the thought again comes to mind, babies raising babies. Posts: 3291 | From: I DO believe in Karma! | Registered: Apr 2002
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and Tiger$illy,(you're not worth another post) the thought again comes to mind, babies raising babies.
Oh yes, and I say an elderly deluded woman crawled up from some hole back on ES, coming to this board and picking on people. Grant me to fight you back each time you are trying to make fun of me, same right for everyone on here ....... call it ES democracy.... If you don't have anything valuable to contribute to a topic don't say nothing at all!
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Laura adds wisdom, humour and knowledge to every thread she contributes to. I wish the same could be said for all posters on ES.
Posts: 2953 | From: Slightly south of Azkaban. | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
this is what iam getting at laura you just keep making a low life remark with nothing positive input now if i was to call you for your point of view where would the topic go, i will tell you it will go knowwhere but down the drain, my view is a collective valid point expressed by many. IAM JUST READING ABOVE NOW LAURA ADDS HUMOR ,WISDOM,ECT WELL IF THAT IS WHAT COMES FROM LOW LIFE REMARKS AGAINST PEOPLES POINT OF VIEW, YOU KEEP YOUR HUMOUR AND KNOWLEDGE
Posts: 1344 | From: uk/ | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by SayWhatYouSee: Laura adds wisdom, humour and knowledge to every thread she contributes to. I wish the same could be said for all posters on ES.
Thank you for your generous words Posts: 3291 | From: I DO believe in Karma! | Registered: Apr 2002
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CAIRO -- On a dirt lane in the poor Arba wa Nus neighborhood, Malles Tonga, a Sudanese refugee, spoke loudly about the brutality of Egyptian police and blamed President Hosni Mubarak for their behavior.
Suddenly, an Egyptian merchant emerged from a nearby dry-goods store, shouted an Egyptian slur for black Africans and yelled: "If you don't like it here, go home!"
The use of the expletive exemplifies the plight of Sudanese who come to Egypt as refugees: They fear going home, but the welcome mat in Egypt, always thin of resources and tolerance, is almost threadbare.
The situation of Sudanese in Egypt brings to light the special difficulties refugees face when they flee a war-ravaged and impoverished land for another poor country. Egypt is in many ways an inhospitable place for its own citizens. In Arba wa Nus, Egyptians share with the Sudanese arrivals the neighborhood's open sewers, dusty alleys, lack of plumbing and precarious chockablock housing.
But dark-skinned Sudanese Christians stand out among the Egyptians, typically lighter-skinned Muslim Arabs. Human rights workers say the Sudanese are subject to taunts, discrimination and violence.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has registered about 24,000 Sudanese refugees here, but independent observers estimate there are hundreds of thousands . Unlike in some other African countries, Sudanese in Egypt are not granted blanket U.N. refugee status, which would open the possibility of resettlement.
Under a bilateral arrangement, Egypt permits Sudanese to live and work in the country, but U.N. approval for asylum results only after a laborious interview process.
A breaking point for many Sudanese came on Dec. 30, when hundreds of riot police stomped through a makeshift camp in central Cairo to clear it of 2,500 refugees, trampling or beating to death 28 people, among them women and children, according to witnesses.
Few outside witnesses saw the melee, and accounts in this article were pieced together from Sudanese refugees. In late September, a few refugees had gathered at Mustafa Mahmoud park in Mohandessin, an upper-middle-class neighborhood, to demand full refugee status from UNHCR, with the possibility that they could be resettled somewhere in Europe, the United States or another wealthy country.
The refugees were worried that they would be forced to return to Sudan. Many had fled southern Sudan, the scene of a 21-year civil war that pitted black African separatists, most of them adherents of traditional beliefs or Christianity, against a Sudanese government run by Muslim, Arabic-speaking northerners who had tried to impose Islamic law on the country. A peace agreement was signed in January 2005, but the refugees reject the notion that repatriation to Sudan is either safe or viable. Roads are still mined, villages are bare and violence flares on occasion. A separate civil war rages in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
The number of refugees involved in the protest grew, unusual given Egypt's ban on any gathering of more than five people. The demonstrators set up plastic tents and formed their own security contingent.
Riot police began to gather on the night of Dec. 29. Big blue troop trucks surrounded the square and officers aimed water hoses at the demonstrators. After midnight, with the desert cold gripping the city, water was poured on the camp. Some of the police yelled, "Give it to them. They need a shower," witnesses said.
Before dawn, the police marched into the camp wielding sticks and truncheons. Some refugees pulled poles from the tents to fight back, witnesses said. Some of the children were huddled under the collapsed tarps, Tonga recalled. "The police just marched in and stepped on everything and everyone," he said.
Tonga said he was hit on the back of the head and knocked unconscious. He awoke in one of several military camps outside Cairo where 1,000 detained refugees were bused.
Earlier this month, the last 156 of about 2,000 migrants arrested during the December violence were released from jail. "The Egyptian authorities have set free all the Sudanese who were transported to the detention centers after putting an end to their strike," a Foreign Ministry official said. They were illegal immigrants, the official told reporters in Cairo, but would not be deported "for the sake of not scattering the Sudanese families who live in Egypt."
The refugees think they lost. Amer Gaber, who belongs to a group called Sudanese Refugee Voice and helped organize the protest, said, "We got some attention, but internationally, there was not much reaction."
U.N. refugee officials, whose office is a half-block from the scene of the violence, are fighting accusations that, by urging the police in, they were responsible for the massacre.
Astrid van Genderen Stort, the UNHCR spokeswoman in Cairo, said demands for resettlement are unrealistic; countries, not the United Nations, make the decision to admit individuals. "It is not a gift that we can pull out of our pocket," she said. Repatriation to Sudan is voluntary, van Genderen Stort said. She noted that UNHCR resettled 3,700 Sudanese out of Egypt last year.
UNHCR and refugee leaders had reached an agreement on Dec. 17 to review asylum requests and provide new aid, but some demonstrators refused, the agreement fell apart and the protest continued, van Genderen Stort said. "People began to think that the longer they were on the square, the more likely they could get out of Egypt," she said. "They became like children who thought they could get something just because they wanted it."
Barbara Harrell-Bond, a visiting professor of refugee studies at the American University of Cairo, criticized UNHCR for failing to grant Sudanese blanket refugee status in Egypt and for suggesting that they could voluntarily return to Sudan. "Return to what?" she said. "There are internally displaced people in Sudan as it is. Sudan is not stable. The fact that refugees don't go back indicates they can't go back."
The Egyptian government maintained that it did the right thing by clearing the square.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Egypt "dealt with the sit-in with wisdom and patience." Egypt's Interior Ministry said police were protecting UNHCR, which it said received threats of attack on commission offices and staff.
In Tonga's mind, such statements demonstrate the weight of discrimination and intolerance. "We need to be settled somewhere else," he said.
As a metalworker, Tonga said, he earned the equivalent of $2 a day, about half of what an Egyptian would be paid, but he left his job because he was afraid. "The Egyptians hate me because I worked for less than them," he said. "God, how I wish I could get paid what they do. But we are discriminated against."
Tonga fled Juba in southern Sudan in 1992 for Khartoum, the capital, after his brother was killed in the war. In 1999, he was arrested and accused of secretly working for southern rebels. He was jailed, caned, kept on low rations for a week, then released, he said.
Using fake documents, he fled to Cairo, where he won asylum status from UNHCR. But Tonga said he wanted to be resettled in the West. "I felt that Egypt was no good for us before the killings," he said.
Returning to Sudan is not an option, he said. "Who will protect me when I am there? I was tortured once and that was enough," he said.
Tonga lives with seven men in a room built into a ground-floor recess of a tenement in Arba wa Nus. Their toilet is a walled-up hole in the ground. Water drips from a pipe connected to another house; Tonga bathes by bending down and sticking his head under the faucet.
He spends his days in the dirt alleys of Arba wa Nus huddled in conversation with other refugees or seeking handouts from churches. Goats roam the neighborhood. Egyptian carpenters and stonecutters labor outside workshops.
On a recent morning, Tonga shared tea with a compatriot, Yusef Teet, who fled fighting in Sudan in 2001. As the two men drank, a group of Egyptian boys strolled by, laughed and murmured, "Donkey, donkey."
Teet shines shoes for a living, bringing in the equivalent of 30 cents on a prosperous workday. Most people in Arba wa Nus wear rubber sandals, not shoes.
In Sudan, Teet had wanted to be a physician, but completed only one year of high school. In a corner of his room rests a single book in English on anatomy. "I have ambitions!" he exclaimed.
He shares a room with two other Sudanese. They sleep cheek by jowl on thin cotton mats. Teet dreams of going to Libya, where he might be able to catch a boat to Italy. "But the smugglers want $1,000," he said, "and you can die in Libya and no one will know about it."
When police raided the protest encampment, Teet was captured and bused out of Cairo to a military camp. He said they took his sandals, so when they dropped him off back in town, he had to walk barefoot to Arba wa Nus, several miles away.
"They call us beasts and black dogs here. Maybe I will go back to Sudan," he said, adding that after the recent violence, "it is better maybe to die there than live with these miserable people."
posted
laura if your going to write in english let me give you a tip in understanding it
thier like ants= can mean many things like its all over the place' its raining cats and dogs= its raining, thick as pig sh.t= means a dumb person, also does dumb ass,
so my remark was was aimed in a general sense of the word. unlike your remark was to insult.
so when the english use a phrase like this we dont have anything against the animal or insect or the person. but i watched today your so called asylum seekers on my friends cctv stealing from his shop. and i thought for a moment would they do that in thier country,no i dont think they would as we in the west put up with more of peoples sh,t then any other country Posts: 1344 | From: uk/ | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by mac0623: laura if your going to write in english let me give you a tip in understanding it
thier like ants= can mean many things like its all over the place' its raining cats and dogs= its raining, thick as pig sh.t= means a dumb person, also does dumb ass,
so my remark was was aimed in a general sense of the word. unlike your remark was to insult.
so when the english use a phrase like this we dont have anything against the animal or insect or the person. but i watched today your so called asylum seekers on my friends cctv stealing from his shop. and i thought for a moment would they do that in thier country,no i dont think they would as we in the west put up with more of peoples sh,t then any other country
Thanks for the laugh mac, I can't/won't argue with such a highly educated man as yourself. Your words (those that are comprehensible ) speak for themselves.
My apologies to anyone who read this for using the A word. I let a fool's words get the best of me. Shame on me EOT for me.
Posts: 3291 | From: I DO believe in Karma! | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by mac0623: posted 09 February, 2007 04:52 AM --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by mac0623: they are like ants ,everywhere --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Toulo Toul ennakhleh wo 3aqloh 3aql essakhle
Were you drunk when you made that comment, or are you just an arrogant a$$hole all the
NO JUST AN EXPREESES VIEW FROM THE WEST AND A VALID ONE AT THAT AS OUR CRIME RATE IS SOARING AND THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE CLAIMING AND DEMANDING BENEFITS FROM MY COUNTRY IS GOING THROUGH THE ROOF, IAM ALL FOR THE FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT BUT NOT FOR THE FREEDOM OF LETS GET IN TO THIS COUNTRY AND LIVE OFF THE STATE AND DEMAND EVERTHING POSSIBLE,IAM FED UP TO THE BACK TEETH OF PEOPLE CALLING THE WEST THEN COME HERE AND TRYING TO CHANGE IT AND THEN MARCHING ON THE STREETS DEMANDING THIER RIGHTS. THE TROUBLE IS THE MANY WILL ALWAYS SPOIL IT FOR THE FEW WHO DO NEED HELP, SO DONT BE CLEVER WITH YOUR REMARKS STATE A VALID POINT ,NOT A STUPID REMARK
wow... had to double check i hadnt written this! its a nightmare here... kids cant even speak english in the schools, so the others suffer.
have to say i havnt read this whole thread yet, but laura... i thought your comments to mac were way off the mark. sorry.
Posts: 549 | From: charm el feikh? | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by mac0623: this is what iam getting at laura you just keep making a low life remark with nothing positive input now if i was to call you for your point of view where would the topic go, i will tell you it will go knowwhere but down the drain, my view is a collective valid point expressed by many. IAM JUST READING ABOVE NOW LAURA ADDS HUMOR ,WISDOM,ECT WELL IF THAT IS WHAT COMES FROM LOW LIFE REMARKS AGAINST PEOPLES POINT OF VIEW, YOU KEEP YOUR HUMOUR AND KNOWLEDGE
have to agree with ya mac. i must say im surprised at some of the posters here... but, as i have found out here before (not gonna search for the threads) people love to trash you for expressing concern about our immigration process. in actual fact we were at australia house today handing in some of our visa docs.. they took the p1ss out of our open door policy.
Posts: 549 | From: charm el feikh? | Registered: Apr 2006
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