KHARTOUM: Sudan has deported 30 Eritreans, including at least six registered as refugees, back to their homeland where they risk detention and abuse, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday.
The Human Rights Watch statement came the same day that Eritrea’s President Issaias Afeworki landed in Khartoum for a three-day official visit.
The Eritrean group of 30 was arrested near the Libyan border in early February and held for three months without charge and without access to the United Nations refugee agency, HRW said.
“On May 1, 2014, Sudanese authorities in eastern Sudan handed 30 Eritreans over to Eritrean security forces,” the group said, citing information from two advocates who were in telephone contact with the group.
“Sudan is forcibly returning Eritreans to serious risk of detention and abuse at the hands of a brutal government,” said Gerry Simpson, researcher at Human Rights Watch.
The watchdog said international law forbids countries from deporting asylum seekers without allowing them to apply for asylum and considering their cases. It also prohibits deportation to places where they would face a risk of death or ill-treatment, HRW added.
AFP
