The Netherlands deports Sudanese to Khartoum

The Dutch immigration service deported Sudanese migrant Samal El Tijani to Sudan on Thursday. Three others are awaiting the completion of their deportation and the journey back to Sudan.

Activists reported that the other Sudanese are Abdelmajid Ismail, Anas Bashir Mohamed and Mohamed Ahmed and that they have been held in a prison in Rotterdam for more than two months.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga, a Sudanese activist based in the Netherlands said that the immigration service had rejected the requests for asylum by the four Sudanese refugees, which made them seek asylum in Belgium but from there they were returned to the Netherlands. The Dublin regulation allows European Union countries to return asylum seekers to the first member state they arrived in.

He and fellow activists condemned the step as being “contrary to international human rights laws”. El Tijani's flight from Amsterdam to Khartoum departed yesterday.

Eviction

On 17 November, Dutch police forcibly evicted 90 migrants, including 17 Sudanese nationals, from an empty office building in Diemen, which is close to the capital city. A group of about 100 activists gathered at the scene carrying banners in sympathy with the refugees.

A human rights activist told Radio Dabanga that the Dutch immigration authority has closed the files of 17 Sudanese nationals in the Netherlands including Darfuris, as they do not believe they come from Darfur. The refugees said they had proved it, but the immigration authorities doubted their arguments.

Belgium

In September, Belgian opposition groups, refugees, and human rights organisations led by Amnesty International strongly criticised Belgium for having invited Sudanese government officials to identify migrants and arrange documents for their forced repatriation. The cooperation could bring the Sudanese asylum seekers in serious problems, they said.

Amnesty pointed to the dire human rights situation in Sudan, where the security apparatus has an iron grip on society, "There is a deeply rooted culture of impunity under the security services, which does not scare people torture and abuse civilians," the organisation stated.

In 2016, Amnesty published an investigation about how migration policies in the EU push authorities in Italy to alleged abuse and deportation of asylum seekers and migrants from Africa. Reportedly forty Sudanese migrants were illegally deported to Sudan without recourse to proper asylum procedures.