Daily Star- UNHCR asks police to end Sudanese sit-in, August 7 2012

BEIRUT: Police officers ended a protest by Sudanese refugees blocking the main entrance to a United Nations office, a press release from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said Monday.

UNHCR officials asked police to intervene in the protest, which the organization no longer saw as legitimate because it impeded aid work, the press release said. Police told the refugees their protest was a violation of the law and reopened the entrance over the weekend.

More than a dozen Sudanese refugees began a protest in June in front of UNHCR’s office in the Beirut suburb of Jnah calling for their status as refugees to be settled.

Protesters first began with a hunger strike then escalated their demonstration, blocking the main entrance of UNHCR’s office at the end of July to get further attention to their cause.

Officials at the aid body have taken steps to resolve the Sudanese refugees’ concerns and the organization said the protest had become a safety concern, the UNHCR press release said.

“UNHCR considers that the protest has lost its legitimacy, and its escalation has become a serious protection and safety concern to other asylum-seekers and refugees, staff, visitors and neighbors who have voiced numerous complaints to the office,” the statement said.

UNHCR officials have said they cannot change the laws of processing resettlement requests, adding that the time it takes to resettle a refugee often depends on the ability of a third country to receive the refugee. Some protesters have been resettled since the demonstration began in June.

“The protest has also started to severely impede UNHCR’s operation in the country, especially with the number of persons of concern having quadrupled since last year,” the statement said.

The hundreds of Sudanese refugees cannot legally stay in the country because Lebanon did not sign an international refugee convention in 1950, and must wait for relocation from UNHCR.

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