Eritrean refugees in Sudan at risk, Canadians say

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This article was published 08/07/2019 (2256 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They fled to struggling Sudan from despotic Eritrea, and now wait to come to Winnipeg, where loved ones have formed groups of five to privately sponsor and resettle them. Now, those refugees face further risks, thanks to a dangerous directive issued by Canadian visa officers in Rome.

Those officials have told hundreds of Eritrean refugees sheltering in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to go to a notorious camp near the border with Eritrea to get their refugee documents validated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees there.

Winnipeggers Girma Welday and Melake Ghidar — who came to Canada as Eritrean refugees in 2011 — say sending folks to the Shagarab camp is a dangerous, pointless directive.

“It’s a two-day drive, with a lot of traffickers on the way,” said Welday.

He and his wife are part of a group that has applied in 2016 to sponsor a cousin with a spouse and kids and a sister-in-law. Welday said they fear the relatives may not survive the trip through human traffickers’ terrain to the unsecured camp to verify their UNHCR “proGres” case numbers.

What’s worse, said Ghidar, is refugees who’ve received case numbers at the camp validating their refugee status have been told by Canadian immigration officials their names don’t match with those numbers when they check the UNHCR data base.

Even if the sponsored refugees go to Shagarab — which has been investigated for corruption and requiring refugees to pay in order to be registered — their cases may never be properly registered in the UNHCR data base, said Ghidar. He has no faith his sister, her husband, their children and a single male cousin he’s sponsoring will be properly registered at Shagarab or verifiable by Canada.

They’re not alone.

Daniel Awshek of the Eritrean-Canadian Human Rights Group of Manitoba said hundreds of such applications are being held up. “These people have family — they’re cousins, sisters and brothers,” he said.

Generations of newcomers have brought their families to Canada, said Hospitality House Refugee Ministry executive director Tom Denton, however, requiring sponsored Eritreans in Sudan to make a dangerous trip to get refugee status from a dubious source puts another barrier up to keep people out.

“It’s a trip wire — a neat way of cutting down on the number of group-of-five sponsorships without ever saying that it’s racist,” said Denton, who was recently named to the Order of Canada.

A spokesman for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said it can’t discuss specific cases and didn’t comment on concerns about corruption at the UNHCR in Shagarab or its dangerous surroundings.

Peter Liang said the IRCC monitors the authenticity of refugee status determination and rely on the UNHCR in Sudan to provide proGres case numbers. “With this information, the department is able to verify the authenticity of the document submitted with their application and ensure that the refugee meets the program requirements of the groups of five and community sponsor streams,” he said.

Meanwhile, “The problem isn’t the refugees, the problem is Sudan,” said David Matas, legal counsel for the Eritrean-Canadian Human Rights Group of Manitoba.

The group has written an urgent letter to IRCC asking it “to devise other means of solving the documentation issue rather than asking refugees at great risk to themselves to obtain documentation from officials against whom there is compelling evidence of corruption.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca