Word: egyptian
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...fence along the border was low enough to jump. But Beyene, who was there with her three children and a group of some 20 asylum seekers from Eritrea, Darfur and southern Sudan, knew that before they reached the other side they would have to get past the armed Egyptian border police...
...group approached the fence, recalls Beyene, she heard warning shouts from Egyptian border guards and then shots. Terrified, she kept running and jumped over the fence with her youngest son, 7-year-old Mulugeta. As she turned around, she saw that 21-year-old Iskender and his 3-year-old sibling Rosa, whom he was carrying on his back, had been shot. "I shouted for Iskender to jump over the fence and he did. That's when the Israeli soldiers took them to hospital. After four days, my son died," Beyene says. Rosa, who reveals a bullet-wound scar...
...Egypt, the response can be more immediate. Nongovernmental organizations such as the Hotline for Migrant Workers and the African Refugee Development Center say that Egyptian border police have shot dead several hundred migrants seeking to cross the border into Israel for work and asylum over the past few years. "From both Israeli soldiers and refugees who crossed the border we can tell for sure that the Egyptians almost always shoot, they shoot to kill and very often they hit the asylum seekers," says Sigal Rozen of Hotline, an independent group that helps asylum seekers in Israel. At the Israeli cemetery...
...Egyptian officials say security concerns justify their actions. They claim Islamist militants and drug smugglers use the same routes and that bedouin passers, whom the asylum seekers pay to smuggle them to Israel, sometimes fire at the border guards. Cairo has also come under pressure from the Israeli government to halt the increasing number of migrants crossing the border. Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki says Cairo is doing everything it can to strike a balance between the humane treatment of the asylum seekers and the protection of its borders. "This is a vast desert area, manned by fewer troops...
...Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told TIME that hot return had been approved by both the Israeli and Egyptian justice systems, with the knowledge of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in the region. "We know for a fact that most of these people are not asylum seekers. Some of them are, but most are illegal immigrants," he added. However, the UNHCR has condemned the procedure. On Nov. 26, in comments on an ongoing case before Israel's high court, UNHCR said that Egypt is not safe for asylum seekers. It mentions the regular imprisonment by Egypt...