From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Mar 02 2010 - 13:23:37 EST
UN rights boss urges Egypt to stop shooting migrants
Tue Mar 2, 2010 12:05pm GMT
* Navi Pillay says 60 migrants killed since July 2007
* Calls for inquiry into possible shoot-to-kill policy
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, March 2 (Reuters) - The United Nations' human rights chief accused
Egypt on Tuesday of shooting unarmed African migrants trying to enter Israel
via the Sinai Desert and said 60 of them had been killed since July 2007.
Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for Cairo to
urgently launch an independent and credible inquiry into what could be a
"shoot-to-kill policy" by some Egyptian security forces.
"While migrants often lose their lives accidentally when travelling in
over-crowded boats, or trying to cross remote land borders, I know of no
other country where so many unarmed migrants and asylum seekers appear to
have been deliberately killed in this way by government forces," Pillay
said.
Egyptian police have killed nine migrants this year, including an African
man at the weekend, while at least 19 were killed last year. Dozens more
have been wounded or have disappeared, according to her statement.
The victims, who include several women and at least one child, were all on
the Egyptian side of the Sinai border with Israel.
The great majority killed since Egypt and Israel agreed to toughen border
controls in the Sinai in July 2007 are from sub-Saharan Africa; mainly
Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia.
"The sheer number of victims suggests that at least some Egyptian security
officials have been operating a shoot-to-kill policy. It is unlikely that so
many killings would occur otherwise. Sixty killings can hardly be an
accident," said Pillay, a former U.N. war crimes judge from South Africa.
Shootings stopped in the first half of 2009, and then resumed, strongly
suggesting a pattern, she said. The fact that it was a highly sensitive
border and a restricted military zone was "no excuse".
"There needs to be clarity about what has occurred, what policies have been
applied to migrants trying to cross this border and what specific orders
have been given to security forces patrolling the area," Pillay said.
The first known victim was Hadja Abbas Haroun, a 28-year-old Sudanese woman
from Darfur, said to be pregnant at the time, Pillay's spokesman Rupert
Colville told a news briefing.
Israel has a large informal sector employing migrants, mainly from
sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa, according to the International
Organisation for Migration.
The Sinai border is a major transit route for African migrants and refugees
seeking work or asylum in Israel. Egypt has come under pressure from Israel
to staunch the flow, while rights groups complain about the methods of the
border police.
Amnesty International called on Egypt earlier this month to check its border
guards' use of excessive force against unarmed migrants.
Security forces say they only fire at migrants after repeated orders to stop
are disregarded and that smugglers who ferry migrants to the border
sometimes fire on security forces. (Editing by Jon Hemming)
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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