Egypt: Guards Kill 3 Migrants on Border with Israel

(New York) - Egyptian border guards have shot dead three migrants attempting to cross from Egypt to Israel over the past four days, bringing the total number of migrants shot dead at the border so far this year to 12, Human Rights Watch said today. The Egyptian authorities have arrested a number of refugees over the past month, one of whom remains missing, and the authorities also appear to be preparing to deport two refugees from Darfur back to Sudan, where they face detention and torture, Human Rights Watch said.

"Egyptian guards have made the Sinai border a death zone for migrants trying to flee the country," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "What's more, the Egyptian government has not investigated even a single case of the 69 killings of migrants by border guards since 2007."

In response to criticism over the fatal shootings, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in a news release that "the number of deaths in these incidents did not exceed 2 percent in 2008 and 4 percent in 2009 of the total number of migrants attempting to cross."

On March 2, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said that she knew "of no other country where so many unarmed migrants and asylum seekers appear to have been deliberately killed in this way by government forces." The Egyptian government responded  the following day, saying that her statement was full of inaccuracies and false allegations and "lacked the professionalism and impartiality that Egypt expected from such an important international post." Egypt has provided no details about the alleged inaccuracies.

In its 2008 report, "Sinai Perils," Human Rights Watch documented how in the vast majority of cases of migrants killed at the border, smugglers were not present when border guards opened fire. Refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrants who had tried to cross into Israel repeatedly described incidents in which smugglers, in return for payments, led migrants at night to within walking distance of the border, pointed out the way, then withdrew. When the guards open fire, the smugglers are already far away, those interviewed by Human Rights Watch said. Even if the guards were genuinely trying to catch the traffickers, that would not in itself justify lethal force, which should only be used when strictly unavoidable to protect life, Human Rights Watch said.

Egypt is violating international requirements for the treatment of refugees in other ways, Human Rights Watch said. Those granted official recognition as refugees by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) should be protected from deportation to countries where they are at risk of persecution. But refugees in Egypt remain vulnerable to deportation despite the fact that they hold documentation from the UNHCR. On January 25, Egyptian authorities sent a UNHCR-recognized refugee, Mohammed El Hadj Abdallah, back to Sudan. He had been arrested in September 2009 in Ismailia, in northern Egypt, then detained until he was deported.

Egyptian authorities now appear to be preparing to deport at least one recognized Sudanese refugee, Mohammad Adam Abdallah. A second recognized refugee, Ishaq Fadl Ahmad Dafa Allah, is detained in Qanater prison and was told by a Sudanese embassy official that he too would soon be deported back to Sudan. The Sudanese embassy has issued a travel document for Abdallah, and Egyptian security officials have moved him from Qanater to the Khalifa police station, which is used as a deportation center. Egyptian security officials arrested the two refugees in Sinai in August 2009 on suspicion of trying to cross the border into Israel.

Both men are from the Zaghawa tribe in Darfur, and were granted refugee status by UNHCR because they had faced persecution, detention, and torture in Sudan and would face persecution if returned there. Sudanese authorities continue to target Darfuri activists all across Sudan. The two men are also active members of the Zaghawa Association, a Darfuri community group in Egypt: Dafa Allah is the chairman and Abdallah a member of the executive committee. Dafa Allah is also active in the Union of Darfur Associations in Egypt, and in that role was providing assistance to other refugees and asylum seekers.

In December 2008 and January 2009, Egypt forcibly returned more than 45 Eritrean asylum seekers to Eritrea, where they face detention and the risk of torture, without first assessing their protection needs and providing them with the opportunity to make asylum claims. Under refugee law and under the Convention Against Torture, Egypt may not return anyone to a country where he or she faces the risk of torture and persecution.

On January 19, Egyptian Foundation for Refugee Rights lawyers submitted a complaint to the General Prosecutor protesting Haroun's incommunicado detention. They also submitted a request to the prisons authority on February 17 to determine where he was being held, and were told that he was not detained in any Egyptian prison. Incommunicado detention at an undisclosed location amounts to enforced disappearance.

"Incommunicado detention in state security offices is illegal under Egyptian and international law," Whitson said. "The fact that Faisal Haroun is a vulnerable refugee makes it even more urgent to reveal where he is and either charge or immediately release him."