Egyptian authorities forcibly deport 8 Eritrean migrants, 10 await departure

Egyptian authorities deported eight Eritrean migrants, all of the same family, on Sunday evening to Asmara, while 10 others are set to follow them soon, a source at the independent Refugee Platform in Egypt and an Eritrean source in Cairo related to the family told Mada Masr.

The refugees, who may face harsh penalties in Eritrea for leaving the country without documents, were forced by Egyptian authorities to sign deportation papers in August.

Authorities did not allow them to hire a lawyer or to register as asylum seekers with the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Egypt, according to the sources.

The relative said that one of the eight family members called him at 10:30 pm on Sunday while on an EgyptAir plane, using a passenger’s phone, to inform the relative that they will be deported to Eritrea in 10 minutes. The source was not allowed to enter the airport on Saturday to bring medicine or money to the family members before their deportation.

The family’s relatives said that he learned that ten more refugees, currently detained in Qusayr Police Station, in the Red Sea Governorate, are set for deportation within the next few days. 

Sources told Mada Masr on Sunday that the eight refugees deported yesterday and the remaining ten had all been detained in Qusayr Police Station since October 2019, after trying to enter the country irregularly. In August, the Egyptian authorities forced all of them, except for three minors among them, to sign travel documents to Eritrea.

The eighteen migrants had previously requested contact with the UNHCR office to seek asylum, but the police station rejected their request, with officials telling them that they were “not allowed to register,” the family’s relative, a source from the Refugee Platform in Egypt, and a representative of the Eritrean community in Egypt who began following the case about a year ago, Ali Abdel Rahman, all confirmed to Mada Masr.

Asked about the detained migrants, the external relations officer for the UNHCR office in Egypt Christine Beshay, told Mada Masr on Monday, “So far, UNHCR has not been granted access to them. UNHCR continues to call on the Egyptian authorities to allow it access to any detainee seeking asylum, to assess their claim to international protection.”

In September, Egyptian authorities walked back the deportation of two Eritrean migrants who had been detained in Egypt for years. Both are still detained, however, and are yet to be allowed to register as asylum seekers with the UNHCR. 

For their part, Abdel Rahman told Mada Masr that he knows of around 300 Eritrean migrants currently detained in several cities across Egypt on charges of entering the country irregularly, including 40 in Aswan, threatened with imminent deportation.

High rates of desertion or avoidance of conscription, which is mandatory for both men and women over the age of 15, have been recorded among Eritreans pursuing irregular migration into nearby countries or to Europe. The country stipulates harsh prison sentences and even the death sentence for desertion taking place during times of war. A war between Eritrea and Ethiopia that began in 1998 was only officially brought to a conclusion in 2018.