Nine stories and other items from over the course of the day that update, most recently, last night's batch:
From the AP...
The death toll from Egypt's violent clearing of a Sudanese migrant camp rose to at least 25 Saturday as the presidential spokesman expressed sorrow and garbage collectors moved in to clear away the trash of a failed three-month protest.
The Sudanese refugees were gone, but a picture of two of them, a couple holding hands on their wedding day, remained - until it was scooped into rubbish bins with the rest of the rubble.
The photo, inscribed on the back with the words: ``Congratulations Yassmin and Ridha for your marriage,'' lay among the abandoned and meager belongings of the Sudanese - dirty blankets, clothes, photo albums, slippers and children's shoes.
As many as 20,000 Egyptian riot police swinging clubs swept into the tiny Cairo park to evict 2,000 or so Sudanese squatters early Friday. Police had spent much of the night dousing migrants with water cannons stationed on all four corners of camp. A protest leader said seven children were among those killed.
With scenes from the violent encounter repeatedly playing on television news channels around the world, a spokesman for President Hosni Mubarak expressed the country's ``sorrow and pain for all the victims.''
But Sulieman Awad also rejected criticism from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, saying police had evicted the protesters at the agency's request.
The migrants had occupied the park since Sept. 29 to demand that officials in the nearby UNHCR offices declare them eligible for resettlement in a third country. Egypt's Interior Ministry said the agency asked for protection because it had received threats.
On Friday, High Commissioner Antonio Guterres condemned the bloodshed from his Geneva office, saying ``there is no justification for such violence and loss of life.''
Awad said authorities ended the protest ``in response to three written requests from the UNHCR office in Cairo.''
``The UNHCR is fully aware of how much help Egypt has given in this situation and how much patience it has shown,'' he said.
The UNHCR stopped hearing the cases of Sudanese seeking refugee status after a January peace deal ended a civil war in the south of their homeland.
Criticism mounted in Egypt and abroad as a small group of protesters gathered at the park, chanting ``down with Mubarak'' and ``humanity was killed here.''
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights condemned ``the unjustified violence.''
Estimates on the number of dead varied.
Security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk with the media, said the toll rose to 25 when several protesters succumbed to their injuries. The Interior Ministry, however, stuck to a statement that only 12 Sudanese died and 74 police were injured, blaming the protesters for provoking the violence.
Protest leader Boutrous Deng said 26 Sudanese were killed, including two women and seven children. Egyptian Dr. Aida Saifaldawlah, who had treated the Sudanese during the protest, said 30 people died and 60 were wounded.
She said 2500 Sudanese were taken to camps run by security forces.
Not everyone sympathized with the Sudanese. The Cairo city government had been under heavy pressure from residents in the well-to-do neighborhood to close the camp.
``Look at this place. It's like a garbage dump,'' said Khaled Mohammed, a Cairo policeman who had been assigned to guard the protest camp. ``They brought diseases and a bad reputation to this district.''
From DPA...
One of Egypt's oldest non-governmental human rights organizations urged Saturday that a group of Sudanese refugees not be forcibly repatriated in the aftermath of clashes that saw 25 of them die.
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) urged 'that the refugees not be deported to their country and in the event that they are, there must be guarantees from the Sudanese government for their safety.'
The group condemned the use of 'unjustified force' Friday to break up a three-month sit-in protest in a square in an upscale Cairo neighbourhood in which more than 3,000 people, including women, children and the elderly, were participating.
The refugees had set up camp near the regional offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), urging it to grant them official status as refugees ahead of resettlement in Western countries.
Dozens were injured in an ensuing stampede as security forces and riot police used water cannons to force the protestors to board buses to be taken to camps set up in the greater Cairo area. Some 75 police were wounded in the clashes.
The rights organization called for an immediate investigation into the incident and urged that those implicated be put before the courts.
It also asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to re-examine its position towards the refugees, particularly those from troubled areas in Sudan.
Cairo has said it considers the Sudanese, who have not been granted official status as refugees by the UNHCR, to be illegal migrants.
Egypt has been a jumping-off point to Western countries for many Sudanese who fled the more than two decade-long civil war in their country which was officially ended in January 2005 by a peace agreement. Many Sudanese in Egypt say their lives would be in jeopardy if they returned.
Soleiman Awwad, spokesman for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Saturday expressed Cairo's regret at the loss of life during the breaking up of the protest. He reiterated earlier comments from the Foreign Ministry that there had been exhaustive efforts to end the sit-in peacefully.
Awwad said that after those attempts failed, Egypt was left with no choice but to intervene in the protest and he asserted that it had upheld its obligations with respect to the refugees.
The presidential spokesman hailed Sudan's political achievement in concluding the peace agreement with the south which he said provided a positive environment to which the refugees could return.
The Sudanese Foreign Ministry, in statements run Friday by the official news agency, said it regretted the deaths but that it hoped the crisis would be settled by the protestors' agreement to return home.
The death toll in clashes between Sudanese refugees and Egyptian security forces rose to 25 overnight Saturday, said security sources, after attempts to break up a protest camp in Cairo turned violent.
Security sources said that dozens of Sudanese and 76 police were injured during the attempt to evacuate the refugees overnight Friday when a stampede occurred as they were urging people on to buses.
Television footage showed security forces using water cannons to break up the protest.
The refugees were taken to several makeshift camps in the greater Cairo area, said security sources.
Some 3,000 refugees, including women, children and elderly people, had joined the protest camp set up September 29 to call on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to grant them official status as refugees ahead of resettling them to a Western country.
Residents near the square in the upscale central Cairo neighbourhood Mohandiseen where the camp was located complained about its presence.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry overnight Saturday criticized a press statement Friday by UNHCR headquarters in Geneva in which it said that while it was still gathering information about the incident: 'There is no justification for such violence and loss of life.'
The statement was posted on the UNHCR's web site.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry responded: 'It is illogical that the (UNHCR) would make a premature judgment when it says that it did not have all the details about the incident, even though its regional office in Cairo has all the details that confirm that Egyptian authorities dealt with the matter with wisdom and patience for more than three months.'
The Cairo offices of the UNHCR could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Egypt has been a stopping point for many of the refugees from southern Sudan who fled the more than 20-year civil war ended in January 2005 by a peace agreement. Many Sudanese in Egypt say it is unsafe return.
Egypt has said it considers those who were denied refugee status by the UNHCR to be illegal immigrants.
From AFP...
The death toll among Sudanese refugees during violent clashes with Egyptian police has risen to 25, said judicial sources on Saturday.
The refugees died after several thousand riot police, wielding batons and using water cannon on Friday, forcibly removed hundreds of Sudanese who had been staging a protest outside United Nations offices in Cairo for three months.
A judicial inquiry has been opened into the deadly violence.
Investigators went to a Cairo morgue where they found the bodies of 25 victims from the clashes, said judicial sources.
UN chief Kofi Annan and the United States were among those who expressing their sadness at the deaths.
Annan said: "Their deaths are a terrible tragedy that cannot be justified."
He expressed "my profound regret that this situation was not resolved peacefully and through dialogue, as the United Nations high commissioner for refugees had strongly urged."
Women and children dragged off
The protesters had been sleeping rough in deteriorating sanitary conditions in their makeshift crowded camp to demand that the UN refugee agency review cases of asylum-seekers whose applications it had rejected, and to resume resettling refugees in third countries.
An AFP reporter had seen several people being dragged away from the mayhem as refugees - including dozens of women and small children - tried to resist their evacuation.
The refugees were forced into dozens of buses in Cairo's upmarket neighbourhood of Mohandessin, ending a stand-off that had lasted through to the early hours of Friday.
Most protestors were taken to a sealed military training camp in Tora Balad, a town 30km south of central Cairo which is home to a large prison notorious for its political detentions.
From VOA...
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is condemning the violent confrontation Friday in Cairo, in which more than 20 Sudanese refugees were killed.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres says he is deeply shocked and saddened over the violent confrontation between Egyptian police and Sudanese refugees.
UNHCR Spokesman Ron Redmond said, "We are not apportioning blame, because we do not have a clear picture of what was happening on the ground. But, the bottom line is, people died, and, apparently, many were injured, as well. And, this is a terrible tragedy, and there is no justification for such violence and loss of life, as far as UNHCR is concerned."
The chorus of international condemnation is growing. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, also called the fatal confrontation a terrible and unjustifiable tragedy. A U.S. State Department spokesman said the Bush administration was saddened by the incident.
The New York-based group, Human Rights Watch, is calling for an independent investigation into the deaths.
Egypt's Interior Ministry says the deaths were caused by a stampede, but reporters on the scene said police stormed the improvised refugee camp and beat the refugees - including women and children - with sticks and batons.
About two-thousand Sudanese had been demonstrating in Cairo's Mostafa Mahmoud Park since September 29. They were protesting living conditions and demanding resettlement to third countries. Throughout this period, the UNHCR tried to mediate a peaceful resolution between the Sudanese refugees and the Egyptian authorities.
About 1,300 demonstrators were detained, and reportedly taken to three locations outside Cairo. Mr. Redmond says some of the people who were taken away have been released. He said UNHCR staff in Cairo are trying to gain access to those who still are detained. "We are urging Egyptian authorities to scrupulously respect the principle of non-refoulement," he said. "In other words, not to send people back to any place where their lives may be in danger. We have asked for the immediate release of all the people who have been recognized by UNHCR as either refugees or asylum seekers. We understand that is already being done and began overnight. We are also asking for full and unhindered access to all the remaining detainees."
Spokesman Redmond says the UNHCR is asking the Egyptian authorities to ensure medical treatment and psychological counseling to those who are detained. It also wants the authorities to make shelter arrangements for people who have been released and have nowhere to live.
He says most of the refugees are from southern Sudan. But, some also come from the conflict-ridden province of Darfur.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the fatal confrontation in Cairo between Egyptian police and Sudanese refugees is a terrible and unjustifiable tragedy. In a statement released Friday, Mr. Annan said he profoundly regrets the situation was not resolved peacefully.
Earlier Friday, at least 20 Sudanese refugees were killed when thousands of riot police surrounded the camp and used water cannon on the refugees. Egypt's interior ministry says the deaths were caused by a stampede, but reporters on the scene said police beat the refugees -- including women and children -- with sticks and truncheons.
UN officials say up to 25 hundred Sudanese migrants have been demonstrating in Cairo's Mostafa Mahmoud park since September 29th, demanding resettlement in another country.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the Bush administration was "saddened" by the incident, and US officials were in touch with Egyptian authorities.
Gamal Nkrumah is the foreign desk editor of the Cairo-based newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly. He was at the camp Thursday evening before the police attacks. He told English to Africa reporter William Eagle that there was tension there as rumors circulated about an impending police attack. However, he said many people discounted the warnings as just one of many false alarms received by the asylum seekers since the establishment of the camp in the mainly upper class neighborhood.
Mr. Nkrumah says at the beginning of their protest in September, the refugees enjoyed a measure of support from the populace -- with some people bringing food and clothing. But, he says, neighbors eventually complained to the police about drinking and reported rowdiness in the camp. He also says there may be an element of racism behind the treatment of the asylum seekers and refugees -- especially those from southern Sudan.
“They stood out,” he says, “not just because they’re black...or Christian...[but] because many of them do not have a very good command of Arabic.”
Moreover, he says a number of refugees are living in slums on the outskirts of Cairo where Mr. Nkrumah says the asylum seekers have to share meager resources with their poor Egyptian neighbors. He says there is a lot of competition for jobs and living space, and generally relations between the two groups have deteriorated: “They were basically targeted for much racist xenophobia, and people thought they were coming to take over their jobs -- and joblessness is very high in Egypt.”
Gamal Nkrumah says civil society demonstrated in support of the Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers on Saturday. But he says the government has not yet commented on Friday’s violence, and many people remain ambivalent about the incident: “The public has been to say the least unsympathetic and in many cases hostile: some of them were cheering as the police were raiding the camp.”
Mr. Nkrumah says many foreign and Egyptian journalists were away for New [Year's] weekend. He says he wonders whether the police action was not planned to coincide with the holiday.
From the BBC...
Human rights activists are seeking an independent inquiry after an Egyptian police operation to break up a protest camp left more than 20 Sudanese dead.
"The high loss of life suggests the police acted with extreme brutality," said New York-based Human Rights Watch.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the deaths were a "terrible tragedy that cannot be justified".
Thousands of police wielding truncheons and firing water cannon at protesters stormed the Cairo camp early on Friday.
The Sudanese migrants had been camped outside UN offices since September, demanding that the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) move them to a third country with better conditions.
Latest reports in Cairo put the number of dead at 25; several are said to be children. The Egyptian authorities said 74 police were injured.
The interior ministry said there was a stampede that left protesters dead and injured. It also accused migrant leaders of inciting attacks against the police.
'Rush to judgement'
A Human Rights Watch statement said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak should "urgently" appoint an independent commission to investigate the use of force.
"A police force acting responsibly would never have allowed such a tragedy to occur," HRW deputy director Joe Stork said.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said there was no justification for the violence and loss of life.
However Egypt has criticised Mr Guterres for making "hasty" judgements without being in full possession of the facts.
It expressed its sorrow over the incident, but said the UN had asked the police to intervene to end a long-running protest outside its offices.
UN spokeswoman Astrid van Genderen Stort said the agency had repeatedly urged the authorities to resolve the protest peacefully.
She also said the UN had so far been denied permission to visit the migrants.
A Khartoum [newspaper] called the deaths "unacceptable" and urged Sudan to take legal action against the Egyptian police "for provoking violence."
"This is a very sorrowful end for a people who fled their own country's frying pan only to fall into Egypt's fire. The inappropriate use of brutal force was uncalled for and appallingly inhuman," the Khartoum Monitor said. [see below]
'Disgusting'
Witnesses said some refugees stood defiantly or fought back, while others fled after police stormed the ramshackle encampment at 0500 (0300GMT) on Friday.
They said the migrants, including women and small children, were dragged towards buses as they tried to resist, leaving clothes, suitcases and makeshift tents scattered in their wake.
One Sudanese asylum-seeker, Napoleon Roberts, told the BBC he had been taken to a barracks south of the capital and was being held with about 1,700 others in disgusting conditions.
BBC Monitoring-produced round-up...
Sudanese papers have reacted angrily after around 20 Sudanese migrants died during an operation by Egyptian police to break up their camp in Cairo on Friday. But the Egyptian press has been more circumspect, making little comment.
"The brutal death of at least 20 Sudanese refugees in Cairo is completely unacceptable," says an editorial in the independent Khartoum Monitor.
"This is a very sorrowful end for a people who fled their own country's frying pan only to fall into Egypt's fire. The inappropriate use of brutal force was uncalled for and appallingly inhumane."
The Sudanese independent newspaper Al-Ayyam describes the incident as tragic.
"No one could ever imagine that the refugees' attempt would end in such a violent way and truncheons and water cannons would be used... This is a great human tragedy," it laments.
Several commentators call on the Sudanese government to take a strong stand.
"The Sudanese government is wrong if it thinks that it is not responsible for this and it is astonishing that it has not issued an official statement about the incident," says a commentary in the independent newspaper Al-Adwa headlined "Shame in Cairo".
"Those who died are Sudanese citizens and the government is responsible for their safety, even if they were under UN protection.
"The government should ask for an explanation of what happened, and it should also put forward proposals on how to resolve the problem of the other refugees who are now being detained in security camps [in Egypt]."
The independent Al-Wahdah makes a similar point.
"As usual, our official media remained distant and no statement has been issued about the incident," it says.
"We are still waiting for a reaction from the Government of National Unity."
And the Khartoum Monitor calls for legal action.
"Sudanese lawyers must begin legal action against the Egyptian police for provoking violence where there was none," it asserts.
Escalate
In Egypt itself, much of the reporting is factual, with the most prominent coverage appearing in the independent and opposition press.
"Midnight battle in Al-Muhandisin," screams a front-page headline in the opposition Al-Wafd.
Some opposition and independent papers also quote Egyptian human rights groups criticising the police operation.
State-owned papers focus on a statement by the country's Interior Ministry accusing the refugees of starting the clash by throwing bottles and gas cylinders at police.
But a commentary in Al-Jumhuriyah asks why the Egyptian government allowed the problem of the refugees to escalate to the point where force had to be used to remove them.
From Reuters...
Rights groups demanded on Saturday an inquiry into the conduct of Egyptian police after at least 23 Sudanese refugees were killed at a squatter camp in Cairo.
The Egyptian government said it regretted the deaths at the camp early on Friday morning but defended the way the police had ended a three-month sit-in by some 3,500 Sudanese, who were demanding resettlement in the West.
In the evening, Egyptian and other sympathizers gathered near the site of the deserted encampment for a vigil in memory of the dead, many of them children crushed to death when police fired tear gas and water [cannons] into crowds of Sudanese.
"We've come to stop the killing of poor people," said Mohamed Sallam, one of the people at the vigil.
"When you kill little babies, things have changed," said Wael Khalil, a protester from the Egyptian opposition movement Kefaya. "We will try you, and you won't be able to travel abroad again," he added, addressing Egyptian police commanders.
Minor scuffles later broke out with riot police sent to observe the vigil. Some of the protesters taunted the police, pointing at them and chanting: "There are the murderers."
The international group Human Rights Watch called for an independent investigation into the deaths, which took place near the Cairo offices of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. The United Nations had said the Sudanese were mostly economic migrants, not people in danger of persecution if they went back to Sudan.
"President Hosni Mubarak should urgently appoint an independent commission to investigate the use of force by police against Sudanese migrants," the New York-based group said.
"The high loss of life suggests the police acted with extreme brutality ... A police force acting responsibly would not have allowed such a tragedy to occur," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division.
TRUNCHEONS
Eleven Egyptian groups blamed the Ministry of the Interior for the events and also called for an inquiry.
"It (the Ministry) knows no way to deal with people, whether citizens or refugees, other than by beating, crushing, extrajudicial killing, or transfer to illegal detention centers," they said in a joint statement.
The Foreign Ministry said it was saddened by the casualties and accused the head of UNHCR of rushing to judgment, after he said on Friday there was no justification for the loss of life.
"The regional UNHCR office has all the details which show that the Egyptian authorities dealt with the matter with wisdom and patience for more than three months," it said.
Presidential spokesman Soleiman Awad said Egypt had no choice but to intervene and said the UNHCR office had asked the Egyptian authorities three times to break up the sit-in.
Witnesses said police beat the refugees with truncheons and used water cannon to drive them from the camp. The Egyptian authorities said the Sudanese died in a stampede after protesters started throwing bottles and rocks at the police.
Human Rights Watch said that by international standards police must use non-violent means before resorting to force.
"The blood is still on the sidewalks, and already the government is blaming the Sudanese refugees and migrants," said Stork. "Given Egypt's terrible record of police brutality, an independent investigation is absolutely necessary to assess responsibility and punish those responsible," he added.
Interior Minister Habib el-Adli, who has also been criticized for the way the police handled parliamentary elections, should be dismissed, the statement added.
Adli took the oath of office again on Saturday as a member of a new cabinet formed by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif.
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