20.
The Complainants allege that families of the deceased were denied access to
the bodies of their loved ones for extended periods and were not able to
provide for timely and religiously or culturally appropriate burials, nor did the
authorities allow them to transfer the bodies of their deceased next-of-kin to
Sudan for burial.
21.
The Complainants say that no investigation has been undertaken by the
Egyptian authorities with respect to events of 30 December 2005 nor has any
individual or institution been held to account in any way for those events. They
allege that attempts to impel such an investigation or secure an independent
inquiry have proved futile.
22.
They inform the Commission that the events to which this Application relates
have been the subject of international condemnation, including from Kofi
Annan, then Secretary-General of the United Nations 5 and the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres.6
23.
They state that the United Nations Committee for the Protection of the Rights
of All Migrant Workers had also expressed concern that the inquiry into the
events of 30 December 2005 had been closed without clarifying the
circumstances leading to the deaths of the 27 7 Sudanese migrants. That the
Committee was also alarmed at reports that eyewitnesses were not heard in the
course of the investigation.8 They state that the Committee had recommended
that the investigation into the events of 30 December 2005 be reopened in order
to clarify the circumstances leading to the deaths and that measures be adopted
to prevent the occurrence of similar events in the future.9
Annan Slams Cairo Protest
Deaths,” CNN, 30
December
2005, available at
<http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/12/30/egypt.sudanese/index.html.
6
“Twenty Sudanese Die in Cairo Raid,” BBC, 30 December 2005, available at
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4568340.stm>.
7 The number of fatalities acknowledged by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the
Complainants, which is lower than their own estimate of 53.
8
Concluding
observations
of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights
of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Issued on 27 April 2007 after consideration of
Egypt’s
report
accessed
3
May
2007
from
http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cmw/docs/co_advanceversion.doc para 24.
9 Ibid n 12 para 25
5
6