Egyptian authorities are carrying out mass arrests of Sudanese refugees who irregularly entered the country, detaining them in inhumane conditions and forcibly returning them to war-torn Sudan, a human rights report revealed on Wednesday.
Amnesty International said it documented 12 incidents between January and March of this year in which Egypt’s Border Guard Forces operating under the Ministry of Defense and police operating under the Ministry of Interior forcibly returned around 800 Sudanese nationals who were denied the possibility to claim asylum.
Authorities in Egypt “have carried out mass arbitrary arrests of Sudanese people and held women, men and children in cruel and inhuman conditions pending their forced return to Sudan,” the report said.
The Amnesty report, titled “‘Handcuffed like dangerous criminals:’ Arbitrary detention and forced returns of Sudanese refugees in Egypt,” said officers in plain clothes have been conducting mass arrests targeting Black people and Sudanese who don’t have valid residency or visas, mostly in the neighborhoods of Cairo and Giza, which host a large number of Sudanese, and in the southern governorate of Aswan bordering Sudan.
