Egypt detains Syrian refugees, forces them out

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the new Egyptian government has detained hundreds of Syrian refugees under difficult conditions and forced them to leave the country.

In a report issued on Monday, the New York-based rights group said the military-backed government in Egypt detained more than 1,500 refugees from Syria, including 400 Palestinians and 250 children, before forcing most to leave the country, AFP reported.

The report said the refugees were detained for weeks and even months, and that some of the children were only two months old.

The HRW report noted that more than 1,200 of the detained refugees, including about 200 Palestinians, had been obliged to depart Egypt.

According to HRW, Palestinian refugees who flee from the conflict in Syria to Egypt are especially vulnerable.

It accused Egyptian authorities of preventing the Palestinians “from seeking protection” from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) and telling them to leave or face “indefinite detention.”

“Egypt is leaving hundreds of Palestinians from Syria with no protection… except indefinite detention in miserable conditions,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa division.

“Egypt should immediately release those being held and allow UNHCR to give them the protection they are due under international law,” he added.

HRW says some 300 refugees from Syria, almost two thirds of them Palestinians, are still in Egyptian prisons and demanded that Egypt hold accountable the security officials who ordered their detention.

Syrian refugees were welcomed in Egypt less than a year ago when former President Mohamed Morsi was still in power.

On July 3, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the head of the Egyptian army, pushed aside Morsi, the country’s first democratically-elected president and detained him in a secret location since then.

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to reports, the Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in the violence.

The UN recently warned against the humanitarian situation in Syria, saying that over nine million people are in need of urgent aid due to the crisis in the country.