Cairo, Egypt - When Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed first started receiving calls on
his mobile phone from an unknown number telling him to leave Egypt, he ignored
them.
But when the threats against the
Sudanese asylum-seeker increased and he began to receive emails and Facebook
posts with the same message - "Get out of the country" - he grew
nervous.
A member of one of Sudan's
multitude of opposition groups, Mohamed tracked the messages back to a Sudanese
embassy official - and took his concerns to the police. But he says the duty
officer's response was terse - "Why should I believe you?". Other
police stations also dismissed his fears.
"No one helps us. They never
do," Mohamed said.
Black, non-Arab Africans say the
case reveals long-standing racism that threatens the security and livelihoods
of Egypt's sizeable sub-Saharan population. While refugees in the country face
an overburdened and highly bureaucratic asylum system and aid organisations are
underfunded and ill equipped to help them, non-Arab refugees face much more
serious problems.
"You can be here 15 years as
a recognised refugee and not for a moment of that will you ever be recognised
legally or have a home," said Christopher Eades, director of legal
programming at AMERA, a British NGO for refugees.
Aid workers believe sub-Saharan
refugees are treated by different informal rules than those of Arab origin -
excluded from schools, facing hurdles opening businesses and finding work, and
hampered in legal cases.
Refugee hurdles
Lengthy UNHCR registration
processes mean most refugees in Egypt must remain in the country without
identification or any means of subsistence for at least three years.
They are forced into the dark
economy, working illegally at cafes, on construction sites, and in other manual
jobs where abuse is routine and they have little protection in law.
"Even if you're a recognised
refugee, and you have a blue card, you have no right to medical treatment, no
right to education, no right to work," Eades said.
As far as the state is concerned,
the refugees fall into a legal grey area where the government has no obligation
to provide for them.
"Egypt is part of the Arab
world, and any place in the Arab world is your home," said Reda Sada
El-Hafnawy, a member of the Shura Council's Human Rights Committee and the
political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. "They are welcomed but we can't
put them under the protection of Egyptian law."
El-Hafnawy insists: "There is
no racism in Egypt, so if there's abuse, it's from the absence of the
law."
But aid workers and community
organisers say otherwise - and believe not all refugees are created equal.
"When there was an influx of
African refugees, there was no attention from the NGOs," said Yagoub
Hamdan a Sudanese refugee and community outreach leader at AMERA.
However, when Syrians began
pouring into the country in late 2012, the UN set up mobile stations throughout
Cairo and the rest of the country, Hamdan pointed out.
"Why did they do that for
Syrians when we had the same problem?"
Hamdan and other community
organisers say Islamic aid organisations provide ample support to Syrians and
Libyans, but rarely to non-Arab Africans.
Christian organisations
Lack of state support means
non-Arab African refugees are forced to turn towards smaller NGOs and Christian
organisations.
Most Egyptians don't consider
themselves African.
-Nada Zeitoun, Nubian filmmaker
But lack of funding - and the
hazards of operating in a climate often hostile towards Christians - greatly
limits the ability of these groups to function effectively.
"We have always been told
there is no space in Egyptian schools, they are overcrowded. Now we have Iraqi
and Syrians, and they find a place in these schools," said an Italian
priest working at a Catholic organisation who requested anonymity.
"Africans face deep
political racism, and as an organisation, we get no help from the Egyptian
state."
Racism faced by black Africans
can also be found in politics, he added. When meeting with their Egyptian
counterparts, black African embassy officials are often "told that being
black, they have to keep a distance".
'Egyptians are not African'
This discrimination finds its was
onto the street, and black Egyptians say they encounter constant social
hurdles.
Nada Zeitoun, a Nubian filmmaker
from the upper Egypt city of Aswan, was recently denied service at a pharmacy
in central Cairo because the pharmacist said he "didn't accept money from
black hands".
Zeitoun exposed the incident on
social media and eventually the pharmacist was fired, but she says it was just
one example of a broader culture of racism.
"Most Egyptians don't
consider themselves African," she said.
Although Nubians are among the
first inhabitants of what is now considered modern Egypt, "[Egyptian
people] don't believe we have a huge provenance of Nubian people."
Zeitoun adds: "Even [deposed
President Mohammed] Morsi thinks we are foreigners."
Several weeks after the incident,
Zeitoun says she received a call from one of the owners of the pharmacy.
He told her: "I'm sorry,
[the pharmacist] didn't know you were Egyptian. He thought you were an African
refugee."
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